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IN ORCHARD GLEN 


BY 

MARIAN KEITH 

AUTHOR OF “TREASURE VALLEY,” 
“THE SILVER MAPLE,” ETC. 

Q(’\t \ Y\ #A^>- 



NEW Hli> YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 






Copyright , 1918, 

By George H. Doran Company 


Printed in the United States of America 


MAR 27 1919 


«/ ^0 
, %r I - 


©CLA5L2851 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I Apple-Blossom Days 

II Away prom Orchard Glen 

III “Whosoever Will Lose His LIFE ,, .... 

IV Craig-Ellachie 

V “Hey! Johnnie Cope” . 

VI St. Valentine’s Prank 

VII Off with the Old Love 

VIII The War Drum 

IX The Dream Knight 

X Called to the Colors 

XI “Last Leave” 

XII “All the Blue Bonnets Are Over the Border!” 

XIII “The Plighted Ring” 

XIV “Over the Top” 

XV The Garden Blooms Again 

XVI The Hills Above Orchard Glen 


PAGE 

9 

34 

50 

76 

93 

109 

122 

136 

152 

167 

185 

195 

216 

233 

247 

256 


v 



IN ORCHARD GLEN 















































. 

















IN ORCHARD GLEN 


CHAPTER I 
Apple-Blossom Days 

I T was on Christina Lindsay's nineteenth birthday that 
she made the second Great Discovery about herself. 
The first one had been made when she was only eleven, 
and like the second it had proved an unpleasant surprise. 

It was midsummer holidays, that time when she was 
only eleven, and raspberry time too, and Christina and 
her brother Sandy were picking berries in the “Slash," 
a wild bit of semi-woodland away up on the hills that 
divided her home farm from the land of the Grant 
Sisters. The Grant Girls — they were all three over fifty 
but everybody rightly called them girls, — the Grant Girls 
were there picking berries too, with Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, 
and several other friends; and there were many more 
groups scattered here and there through the green tangle 
of bushes and saplings. For a berry-patch was com- 
munity property, and when the crop was plentiful, as 
it was this year, a berry-picking became a pleasant social 
function, where one met friends from near and far, and 
picnicked with them under the trees. 

Christina was working with furious speed. She and 
Sandy had been racing all morning to see who would 
be the first to fill a four-quart pail. For Uncle Neil had 
promised the winner unheard-of wealth, a whole quarter 
9 


10 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


of a dollar to spend as one wished, and Christina was 
determined that the money should be hers. 

She had found a wonderful patch and was fairly 
pouring the berries into her pail in a red and black 
shower. She was keeping well down behind a clump of 
alder, too, out of range of Sandy's roving eye. For 
Sandy had a habit of allowing you to find the best 
place, and then swooping down upon it like a plague 
of grasshoppers. She was working so hard that she did 
not notice a group of berry pickers who had taken up 
their station right opposite her on the Grant side of the 
low fence, and was suddenly attracted by the discovery 
that they were discussing her own family. 

“Them Lindsay lassies are that bonnie, I jist like to 
sit and look at them, even in church when I ought to be 
looking at my Bible.” 

It was Miss Flora Grant’s soft voice that came through 
the screen of sumach and alder. 

“They’ve all taken after their mother’s folks.’ , It was 
Miss Elspie’s still softer voice. “The MacDonald women 
of that family was all good lookin’.” 

“Well, my grief! You don’t call that long-legged 
youngest thing good-lookin’, do you ?” sang out the loud 
voice of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. “She’s as homely as a day- 
old colt!” 

The long-legged youngest thing nearly jumped out of 
her hiding place on the other side of the bushes. She 
caught a fleeting glimpse of the last speaker, her long, 
thin neck and green sunbonnet sticking up out of a 
tangle of bushes, like a stinging nettle in a garden. 

“Oh, you mean little Christina,” said Flora Grant 
gently, “I jist didn’t mind about her. No, she’s a nice 
bit lassock, but she’s not bonnie. Eh, Sarah, jist look at 
yon patch over there; the bushes is jist as rid as roses!” 

They all moved away with a sound of tearing briars, 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 


11 


and the Lindsay lass that was not bonnie crawled deeper 
into her leafy hiding-place, making a brave effort to 
choke back something that was causing her throat to swell 
and her eyes to smart. Crying was a luxury never in- 
dulged in, in the Lindsay family, except in the case of 
a real calamity like falling out of the hay mow, or 
tearing your Sunday dress, and Christina dared not run 
the risk of having Sandy find her in tears over mere 
hurt feelings. 

Nevertheless it was a very dreadful thing, quite worth 
crying over, this discovery that she was homely. She 
knew it was a tragedy, from what Ellen and Mary said 
about girls who were not pretty. And the worst 
of it was that even the Grant Girls, who were 
her mother’s very best and closest friends, admitted 
the shameful fact. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn would say even 
Joanna Falls was ugly, just to be mean, but the Grant 
Girls always said the very best about any one that could 
be said. Flora Grant had admitted that she was a 
“Nice bit lassock,” but that was small comfort. Chris- 
tina would have preferred to be pronounced the most 
disagreeable little girl in all the Province of Ontario, 
provided her accuser had added that she was a beauty. 
Character might be improved, but what hope was there 
for an ugly face? 

The Lindsay habit of industry forbade that she sit 
long under a bush covered with berries bewailing her 
lack of comeliness, for even a person as homely as a 
day-old colt might make use of twenty-five cents. So 
she wiped her eyes on her blue-checked pinafore, and 
crawling out from her hiding-place, set stoically to 
work. 

She had been following a path led by the ripest and 
largest fruit, and rounding a clump of briars, she came 
upon some one’s dinner basket, tucked away in a cool 


12 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


corner. There was a pink silk sash folded on the top 
of the basket, and from underneath peeped the edge 
of a hand mirror. The basket undoubtedly belonged 
to Joanna Falls, who was here with a party of girls 
from the village. Joanna was quite the handsomest 
girl in Orchard Glen, and Mrs. Johnnie Dunn said she 
believed she never went even to church without a look- 
ing-glass in her pocket. Christina glanced about her 
guiltily, and then, trembling, took up the little mirror. 
For the first time in her life she looked carefully and 
critically at her own countenance. 

She saw a thin, little, brown face, framed by a blue 
sunbonnet, big blue eyes that made the sunbonnet look 
faded, some untidy wisps of straight fair hair, and a 
great many freckles scattered over a shapely nose. 
Christina carefully replaced the mirror and moved on 
feeling like a thief. 

Yes, she understood now why she was homely. It 
was her straight hair and those dreadful freckles. Mary 
had beautiful long black curls, and Ellen had brown 
wavy hair, and both of them tanned a lovely even brown 
with never a spot or blemish. Well, she would cure 
both maladies, see if she wouldn’t! Mary said Joanna 
Falls washed her face and hands every night of her life 
in tansy and buttermilk. Christina would do the same, 
and she would buy some of that pink complexion cure 
that was in the comer store window, and which Tilly 
Holmes, the store-keeper’s daughter, said would wash 
anything off your face, even a scar. And she would put 
her hair up in curl-papers every night, and best of all, 
she would take the twenty-five cents that Uncle Neil 
would give her, and after she had paid for the com- 
plexion cure, she would buy a yard of pink satin ribbon 
and tie up her hair and she would look as fine and 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 


13 

handsome as Joanna Falls herself, and even Mrs. John- 
nie Dunn would have to admit that she was as good- 
looking as any of the Lindsays! 

And as if to put emphasis upon her vow, she tossed 
the last cupful of berries into her pail, and found it 
heaping full ! She had won the money ! She caught up 
her pail and hurried joyfully to the spot where she had 
last seen Sandy, her spirits rising at every step. She 
was already on the way to beauty and success, by way 
of tansy and buttermilk and twenty-five cents worth 
of complexion cure and pink ribbon ! 

Unmindful of many scratches, she tore through a 
clump of briars, and almost tumbled over a small figure 
crouched in the pathway. It was a boy in a ragged 
shirt and a pair of trousers many sizes too large for 
him. He was kneeling beside an overturned pail, and 
was striving desperately to gather up a mashed heap 
of berries and sand. 

“Oh,” cried Christina, stopping short in sympathetic 
dismay, “oh, Gavin. What did you do?” 

The boy looked up. He was holding his mouth in 
a tight line, manfully keeping back the misery his eyes 
could not hide. “I — I jist fell over them,” he said with a 
desperate effort at nonchalance. 

Christina put down her pail and tried to help. She 
had never liked Gavin Hume. He was a Scotch boy, 
whom old Skinflint Jenkins’ folks had adopted from an 
Orphan Asylum. He was dirty and shy, and at school 
the girls laughed at him and the boys teased him. But 
to-day he was in trouble, and rumour had it that Gavin’s 
life was one long period of trouble, for the Jenkinses 
were hard people. 

“It’s no use,” declared Christina at last, examining the 
dreadful mess, and thinking of what her mother would 


14 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


do with it, “they’re too dirty to use, Gavin. Never 
mind,” she added comfortingly, “she won’t scold, will 
she ?” 

The boy gave a half-contemptuous gesture. “Scold? 
I wouldn’t care about that. He said he’d give me the 
horse-whip when I got home if it wasn’t full.” 

Christina shuddered. “But you did fill it,” she cried 
indignantly. “Won’t he believe you?” 

The boy looked at her as an old man might look at a 
prattling child. Gavin was only a couple of years older 
than Christina and no bigger, but there were ages of 
hardship in his experience, which her sheltered child- 
hood could not know. But Christina’s heart was always 
far in advance of her head, and it guessed much. That 
look told her volumes. Quick as a flash, she righted his 
pail, caught up her own, and tumbled its fresh rosy 
wealth into his, heaping it high. 

“Oh, Christine! Oh, you mustn’t!” The boy caught 
her hand to stop her, but Christina jerked away, and ran 
from him down the twisting green pathway. And as 
she ran she heard Mrs. Skinflint’s terrible voice calling, 

“Ga v-in! Is that pail not full yet, you lazy lump?” 
and Gavin’s prompt reply, “Yes’m. It’s heapin’.” 

And that was some comfort to the homely young per- 
son who, with a pail only half full, and without pros- 
pect of either wealth or beauty, was wending her way 
down the green tangle of the berry patch. Somehow 
the comfort seemed to outweigh the misfortune. 
Gavin’s escape from dire punishment gave her a feel- 
ing of exultation that even a pink satin ribbon would 
fail to produce. 

A shout from Sandy away down in the green nook 
where they had left their dinner pail under a log, quick- 
ened her footsteps. She found him trampling down the 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 15 

berry-bushes in a vain search for the refreshments, for 
Sandy was thirteen and in a chronic state of starva- 
tion. 

“Where on earth you been?” he enquired, in mingled 
relief and wrath. “I thought you must be dead and 
buried. I’m so hungry my back-bone’s cornin’ out at the 
front.” 

Christina giggled. One could never remember one’s 
troubles in Sandy’s gay presence. She dived into the 
cool cavern beneath the mossy log and came out with 
their dinner. Sandy helped her unpack it feverishly. 
Mother had put up a very comforting lunch for a starv- 
ing boy and girl; thick sandwiches of bread and pork, 
scones soaked in Maple Syrup, a half-dozen cookies, a 
bottle of milk and two generous wedges of pie. 

When Sandy had eaten enough to make speech pos- 
sible he pointed triumphantly to his full pail. 

“Say! What do you think? I’ve beat you!” He 
cried in amazement, “I did a perfect moose of a day’s 
work. The quarter’s mine !” 

“Well, I’ve just as much right to it as you have,” 
declared Christina, who did not believe in letting her 
good deeds waste their sweetness on the desert air of a 
berry patch. “I had my pail heaped a dozen times, and 
shook down too, and Gavin Hume spilled all his on an 
ant hill, and he said Old Skinflint would thrash him, so I 
gave him mine.” 

“You did!” Sandy grunted. Christina was always do- 
ing things like that. “Well you’re a silly. Why can’t 
he keep his berries when he picks ’em? Never mind,” 
he added, having reached the pie, and feeling generous, 
“I’ll give you half the money, and we’ll get some gum 
and a box o’ paints.” 

Christina did not dare confess how she had planned 
to spend the money, and was not much comforted by 


i6 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


his offer. Even paints would not permanently improve 
one’s complexion. 

“Sandy,” she said at last, with much hesitation, “do 
you, — who do you think is the prettiest girl in our 
school ?” 

Sandy stared. He belonged to the Stone Age as yet, 
and knew nothing of the decorative, and less about 
girls. He had no notion that they were classified at all, 
except as little girls and big girls. 

“How do / know ?” he enquired, rather indignantly, as 
though his sister had suspected him of secret knowl- 
edge of a crime. “I don’t know any that’s good lookin’,” 
he added conclusively. 

“Our Mary’s awful pretty,” suggested Christina pen- 
sively. 

“Is she ?” Sandy lay back in gorged content, and gazed 
up into the swaying green sea of the Maples. “I bet she 
knows it mighty well, then, let me tell you.” 

“I heard the Grant Girls and Mrs. Johnnie Dunn 
talkin’, when I was away back by Grants’ fence. 
They were talkin’ about our girls, and Flora Grant said 
they were all, — said that Ellen and Mary were so good- 
lookin’ that she watched them in church.” 

Sandy was showing signs of interest. He sat up. 
“What did they say about you?” 

“Flora said I was a ‘nice bit lassock,’ but Mrs. Johnnie 
said,” — Christina could not bring herself to tell the 
humiliating truth — “she said I wasn’t like the rest,” she 
finished falteringly. 

Sandy was beginning to wake up to the fact that 
Christina was in distress. Why any human being should 
worry about her appearance was something far beyond 
Sandy’s comprehension, but he could not endure to see 
Christina worried. He caught up a stone and shied it 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 


17 

across the sunny tangle at an old Crow perched on a 
tall black stump. 

“Sugar,” he declared. “Who cares for what Mrs. 
Johnnie says? She looks like our old brindle cow 
herself. Duke Simms says she’s got chilblains on her 
temper.” 

His stormy attack upon the enemy proved very brac- 
ing to the one who had been so recently overthrown by 
her. 

“But the Grant girls said so too,” she added, searching 
for more comfort. 

“Just as if they knew,” scoffed Sandy. “They’re a 
lot of old rainbows, Duke says they are. Looks don’t 
matter anyhow. It don’t get you on any faster in 
school.” 

Christina, much encouraged, reflected upon this aspect 
of the case. 

“I don’t care,” she decided courageously, making a 
new resolve, that had nothing to do with hair or com- 
plexion. “I’m going to study awful hard at school and 
beat everybody in the class, and then I’m going to college 
some day and be a lady. You’ll just see if I don’t. And 
it’ll be far better to be clever than to be good-lookin’, 
won’t it, Sandy?” 

That was just eight years ago, and now on her nine- 
teenth birthday Christina was calling to mind with some 
amusement the humiliation of that day, and with some 
discouragement, that the high resolve of that occasion 
was far from being realised. 

She came up the path from the barn, where the rays 
of the early sun made rosy lanes between the pink and 
white boughs of the orchard. For Christina had been 
bom in the joyous May-time, and the whole farm 
was bedecked for the occasion. She was tall and straight 


i8 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


and carried her two pails of milk with eas> gxctCc. 
The light through the orchard boughs touched her fair 
hair and made it shining gold. Her eyes were as blue 
as the strip of sky above her, and her cheeks were 
as pink as the apple blossoms. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn’s 
judgment had not been reversed by the years, Chris- 
tina was still a long way from being one of the Lindsay 
beauties. But she possessed an abundance of that lot 
liness that always accompanies youth and health and 
merry heart. 

She was not quite so gay as usual this morning. S’ 
felt that she ought to be grave and dignified, as befit, 
a person who was so old. It was no joke, this be 
nineteen, just next-door to twenty, when ou wanted 
to play with the dog or chase Sandy 
Age makes one retrospective, too, an .s reflectin 

how far short she had come of atta ne great ar 
bition born eight years ago in the raspberry patch. F 
here she was, on her nineteenth birthday, still milk' 
cows and feeding calves, with not even a school tear 
er’s certificate to her credit. 

She had not failed to put forth every effort to attah 
but somehow each high endeavour had turned out 1 
the race for the quarter dollar in the berry patch; s' 
was always just about to grasp the prize, when sonK 
unfortunate picker fell across her path with a spill . 
pail. 

There was that day when she and Mary and Sam* 
were all ready to go to High School together. But 
Father died that summer, and it was decreed that the 
expense of three in the town could not be met. So 
Christina stayed, partly because the other two were 
older, but mostly because Mary cried bitterly at the 
suggestion that Christina go in her place. 

Then there came a second chance when Sandy had 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 


19 

‘S* fa-wcu- c*xid started to teach school, but Grandpa took 
very ill and could not bear that she leave him. The 
third time proved the charm, for she did get away, 
and for a whole year spread her wings gloriously in 
Algonquin High School. She did wonders, too, taking 
'two years* work in one, but the crops were poor the 
next year and Mary had to take her term at the 
Tochers* Training School, and the expense for two 
*ould not be met. 

And so here she was at nineteen, burning to be up and 
frway, and vowing to herself that not another year would 
jass oyer her head and find her still in Orchard Glen 
*; diking cows and feeding chickens. 

The world %bout her did not seem to be in accord 
hts. It was full of joy and contentment 
•ovith no lot. The robins in the gay orchard 

iboughs wei rjing that it was a glorious place to live 

q. Away up^M the elm tree before the house an 
vrdFiQle was blowing his little golden trumpet, his flashing 
3pat rivalling the row of scarlet and golden tulips that 
^ordered the garden path. The little green lawn before 
^£he house sparkled under a diamond-spangled web. 

, From beyond the pink and white screen of the orchard 
^ifcame the happy sounds of the barnyard; the clatter of 
^ the bars as Sandy turned the cows into the back lane; 
;?Qld Sport's bark; Jimmie’s high voice scolding the calf 
that was trying to swallow the pail for breakfast; the 
^squeal of hungry little pigs; the clatter of hens and many 
pother voices making up the Barnyard Spring Song. 

Christina’s pet kitten, a tiny black blot on the pink 
and green, came daintily down the path to meet her, 
mindful of her two pails of warm milk. Sport, who had 
succeeded in putting the cows into their places, came 
bounding up in a fit of boisterous familiarity, and leaped 
at the little black ball with a gay. 


20 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


“Woof! How are you this morning, you useless 
black mite?” 

Two indignant green spots flamed up in the black- 
ness and the mite itself turned into a fierce little bow, 
bent to shoot, and in a flash, bow quiver and all shot like 
lightning up the tree, spitting arrows in all direc- 
tions. 

Christina forgot all about her ambitions and laughed 
aloud, and Sport joined her, leaping around her and 
laughing silently in his own dog fashion with tongue 
and tail. It was very hard to remember that one was 
nineteen and had never been anywhere nor attained 
anything, impossible to remember when the orchard 
was aflame in the sunrise, and the oriole was shouting 
from the elm tree. Christina burst into song, just as 
spontaneously as the robins. 

It was a very foolish song, too, one that Jimmie had 
brought home from Algonquin High School : 

“Oh, Judy O’Toole, 

It’s you that’s the fool, 

For lavin’ the county o’ Cork. 

Oh, Judy O’Toole, 

It’s you that’s the fool, 

That iver ye came to New York!” 

Ellen, her eldest sister, was frying the pork and pota- 
toes for breakfast in the old summer kitchen. She 
looked through the door as the singer passed. 

“Christine!” she called reprovingly. “Whatever will 
that girl sing next ?” 

Uncle Neil, who was drying his hands on the roller 
towel at the door, laughed indulgently. 

“It isn’t jist the kind of a hymn that would do for 
prayer-meeting,” he said. “Hi, Christine ! Is that a new 
psalm tune you’re practisin’ ?” 

But Christina and her song had disappeared into the 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 


21 


spring house. This was a little stone structure, built 
into the grassy hill behind the house. Down beside it, 
overhung with willows, a little spring gushed out of the 
sand, clear and cold on the hottest summer days. And 
so, in the little stone building, Christina’s butter was 
always sweet and hard, like golden bricks. 

She set about her work with swift motions. It was 
necessary to work harder than usual to-day, to get rid of 
the ache to be away doing something else. She set 
the separator whirling, giving out its droning song of 
plenty — the farm Matins and Vespers. 

“Jimmie,” she called up the little stone stairway, 
“hurry down here. Lazybones, and turn the Gramo- 
phone.” 

A big clumsy boy, whose body was getting ahead of 
his mind in the race for maturity, came thumping 
down the steps with the calves’ empty pails. He pulled 
a loose strand of his sister’s hair as he seized the handle 
of the separator. 

“Now, Mrs. Johnnie Dunn,” he warned, “don’t go 
orderin’ your betters round.” 

Their work was brightened with a great deal of merry 
nonsense. For Christina always made holiday of all 
toil, and even Jimmie, who was passing through the 
weary period of boyhood, when any effort is insup- 
portable, found it amusing to work with her. 

“I suppose, now that you’re nineteen, you’ll be gettin’ 
a fellow,” he teased, as he watched her wash the sep- 
arator and put it out in the sun. “It’s time you had 
one.” 

“Yes, I was thinking that too,” said Christina agree- 
ably. “I was planning that I would get Mike Duffy 
to be my beau, now that you’re so sweet on Big Rosie. 
It would be so nice to be married into the same 
family.” 


22 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


Jimmie gave a squall of rage and disgust. Rosie Duffy 
was a huge freckled-faced girl, to whom, in a moment of 
generous weakness, he had given a ride from town, and 
Christina had used the fact to his undoing ever since. 

He caught up the calves’ pails of milk and fled up 
into the sunshine. It was never safe to tease Christina, 
you always got back far worse than you gave. 

When he came back to the house the family was 
gathering for its breakfast, and a fine big family it was. 
There were just two absent, the father, who was taking 
his well-earned rest in the grassy church yard on the 
hill, and Allister, the eldest son, who had gone west 
ten years ago to make his fortune and had not been home 
since. 

Uncle Neil MacDonald took his place at the head of the 
table, where he had sat ever since the father left it. 
Uncle Neil was very much beloved, but he was in no 
sense the head of the family. He was a gay, easy- 
going body, given to singing songs and playing the 
fiddle, and not at all calculated to keep a virile group 
of boys and girls in order. So, John, the eldest son at 
home, was the real head of the family, and his mother’s 
support. For John was wise and strong and many, many 
years older than Uncle Neil. 

Ellen, the busy housewife, came next. She was just 
as handsome as when Miss Flora Grant used to look 
at her in church, and since she had grown up many 
other admiring eyes looked her way. Neil, who was 
going to be a minister, but who was very much of a 
farmer this morning, sat by John. Neil was already in 
College, and Mr. Sinclair, the minister of Orchard Glen, 
who made it his boast that in twenty-five years of his 
ministry the Orchard Glen church had not been with- 
out its representative in Knox College, declared that 
not one of the train had come up to Neil Lindsay 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 


•23 

in intellect, and that the world and the church would 
hear of him one day. 

Mary was the family beauty, all pink and white with 
glossy curls, and Sandy was still Christina’s chum and 
confidant, and the last was Jimmie, hovering between 
boyhood and manhood. There was a plate set for 
Grandpa Lindsay, who had not yet appeared. He was 
rarely quite in time for the early farm breakfast, but 
he was always on the scene before they separated, to 
conduct family worship. His bedroom was off the win- 
ter kitchen, where the breakfast was laid, and they could 
hear him moving about singing and talking to him- 
self. 

Mrs. Lindsay was a little woman with a sweet, strong 
face covered with a network of wrinkles. Her hands 
were calloused and discoloured and her back was bent 
with hard work, but her eyes were bright, and her heart 
was still as young as her family. 

“And it’s nineteen you are to-day, hinny,” she cried, 
looking at Christina fondly. 

Christina made a wry face. “Yes, isn’t it awful? I 
don’t want to be so old.” 

“Hut, tut, old,” laughed Uncle Neil. “Your mother 
and father were on their way from the Old Country 
when she was nineteen, and Allister was a baby.” 

Christina mentally decided that even crossing the 
ocean to a strange country was not at all as bad as stay- 
ing for nineteen years in the same place, but she did not 
say so. 

“Well, it’s pretty nice to be nineteen, isn’t it?” said 
Neil. “If it wasn’t seeding time Jphn and I would take 
a day off and go on a picnic.” 

“I wish something would happen,” said Christina 
recklessly, “something awfully surprising.” 

“You might go out and hoe up that back field of 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


24 

corn,” suggested Sandy. ‘That would surprise John and 
me more than anything.” 

“But it wouldn’t surprise me a bit and I’m the per- 
son concerned. Nothing in the shape of work could 
possibly surprise me any more. It would have to be a 
spree of some sort.” 

“Well,” said Ellen, who was always sensible and prac- 
tical, “be thankful that nothing unpleasant is happen- 
ing. Anybody would think you would like the barn to 
burn down.” 

It was rather a noisy breakfast, for the Lindsays were 
a bright crowd in spite of much hard work, and Chris- 
tina and Sandy were always making merry over some- 
thing. They were just finishing when Grandpa came in 
with his toddling step and his usual exclamation of 
pleased surprised, “Eh, well, well, and you’re all here!” 

Christina ran for the ancient Bible that lay on the 
shelf in the corner, with Grandpa’s spectacles upon it. 
Ellen fetched his old red cushion from the sofa in the 
corner, and Grandpa sat down slowly and heavily. He 
had never been heard to complain in all his hard- 
worked life, nor in his years of approaching age, but 
at the morning worship he always chose a portion of 
scripture that accorded with his feelings. So when he 
read the 103rd psalm, his sister smiled, evidently 
he felt in accord with the radiant May morning. 
Grandpa was very deaf and laboured under the idea that 
every one else was similarly afflicted, so he read and 
prayed in a very loud voice. But the Lindsays were 
all used to it. This early morning worship set the stand- 
ard for the day’s work. And led by Grandpa who 
had travelled far up on the road of saintship, it fortified 
young and old for the day’s toil and temptations. 

When it was over the family hurried away to their 
tasks. John and the preacher-farmer went off to the 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 


25 

brown fields, Ellen went to her baking and washing. 
Jimmie shouldered his books and set off on his Monday 
morning tramp to the High School in Algonquin, from 
which he would not return until Friday night. Sandy 
put off his farm overalls, and drove up from the barn 
with the single buggy; and Mary, with a trim dust-coat 
over her pretty blue dress, came tripping down the 
orchard path and climbed into the buggy at his side. 
Mary taught school at a little corner called Greenwood, 
a couple of miles down the concession, and Sandy taught 
just two miles farther on. So every morning the two 
drove away to their schools and returned in the even- 
ing. Christina ran down the lane to open the gate for 
them. 

“Now, be good, and don’t go and do anything very 
wild just because it’s your birthday,” called Sandy. 

“Oh, Christine,” cried Mary, “don’t let Ellen forget to 
wash my pink dress; I got some mud on it yesterday. 
And if you could iron it like a dear, I’d be ever so much 
obliged.” 

Christina promised willingly, and waved them a gay 
good-bye. She stood at the gate watching them as they 
turned down the broad white road. That road could be 
seen for miles from where she stood, winding away 
down over hill and through wooded hollow. It disap- 
peared in a belt of forest but came into view again 
running along the margin of Lake Simcoe far off on the 
horizon, and away beyond her view it ended in a great 
city where Christina had never been. But that road 
always set her heart beating faster. It was the great 
highway that led out into the world, the road she longed 
to take. And always in the morning when she stood at 
the gate thus, just before turning back to the tasks that 
held her, it seemed to beckon her to come away. 

And then she ran back to the barnyard to feed her 


26 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

chickens, and made the second Great Discovery about 
herself. 

Uncle Neil came out of the noisy enclosure where the 
pigs were fighting with their morning meal, and helped 
her throw the feed to her quarrelsome brood. Uncle 
Neil had for years been a semi-invalid and spent his 
time doing the lighter work of the farm and garden. 
Though he had attended school only a few years in his 
childhood, he had a mind stored with the wealth of years 
of reading, held by an unfailing memory. And now 
that his physical ailments gave him more leisure, he 
was reading everything that was worth while that came 
to his hand. And he gave out his wealth generously to 
Christina as they did their work every morning in the 
barnyard. 

They laughed together at one old hen whom Chris- 
tina had named Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, after the one woman 
in Orchard Glen who managed everything and every- 
body on her farm. Her namesake of the barnyard ruled 
all the other hens and saw to it that she was well pro- 
vided herself. 

“She never waits for Opportunity’s bald spot, now 
does she?” said Uncle Neil, admiringly, as the busy, 
fussy lady made a leap and caught a grain of corn in 
mid-air, while another hen was watching for it to fall 
upon the ground. 

“What’s Opportunity’s bald spot?” enquired Chris- 
tina. “How dare you have some information you haven’t 
given me ?” 

“Don’t you know the old story about Opportunity and 
his bald spot?” enquired Uncle Neil delighted. 

And then he told the ancient tale of Opportunity and 
his lock of hair that hung in front, and Christina lis- 
tened with more than her usual absorption. She was 
making her second discovery. 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 27 

‘There !” she exclaimed, with an energy that sent the 
hens scurrying away, alarmed, from her feet. “That's 
just what’s the matter with me. I am always letting 
Mr. Opportunity walk past and then when I try to grab 
him I catch hold of his bald spot and he slips away.” 

“Well, well,” said Uncle Neil, “I don’t think he’s 
walked past you very often. You’re but nineteen to- 
day.” 

“I’m sure that’s bad enough. That’s nearly twenty, 
and then you’re out of your teens. When I was eleven 
I made a solemn vow that I’d get a good education and 
go away off somewhere and attend college and be a 
lady. And here I am at nineteen, still feeding the pigs 
and milking the cows. I guess I haven’t any of the 
Lindsay luck.” 

“The Lindsay luck was always spelled with a p in 
front, my lass, and a capital P at that. You can have 
all of that ye want.” 

They went back up the blossoming orchard path, 
stopping at the pump, which was mid-way to the house, 
to take up a pail of water. They left it at the back 
door under the vines, and Uncle Neil went round to the 
garden at the other side of the old rambling house, to 
help his sister with her onions. Christina ran round to 
the side door where Grandpa was sitting in the sun on 
the old sloping porch. The old man saw her coming 
and drew back behind the vines. As she shot round the 
corner of the house he poked out his head suddenly 
with a loud and alarming “Boo !” 

Christina jumped back with a scream that set the old 
man laughing heartily and kept him chuckling for an 
hour afterwards. Every morning of her life Grandpa 
played this little trick upon her from some corner, and 
Christina never forgot to scream in terror, and Grand- 
pa’s amusement was never abated. 


28 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


She slapped him for frightening her, adding hugely to 
his enjoyment, and ran on into the kitchen. Ellen was 
almost ready to put the clothes on the line and Chris- 
tina gave her a helping hand before going on with her 
own work, reminding her meanwhile of the pink dress 
that must be ready before the evening. 

“We’ll have to hire a woman to do the baking, and I 
guess Grandpa’ll have to do the washing when you 
leave,” declared Christina. “I’d make a bargain with 
Bruce, if I were you, that he’s to do the washing himself, 
before I’d marry him.” 

Ellen laughed gaily. She and Bruce McKenzie had 
been sweethearts ever since their public school days, 
and the next Christmas they were going to start life 
together on Bruce’s farm. Ellen was very radiant these 
days and Christina’s warnings were a source of amuse- 
ment. 

When the snowy array was hung in the sunshine, 
Christina went down into the cool spring house to her 
churning. She stood at the door, whirling the dasher 
and looking up into the blossoming orchard, but seeing 
none of it. She was really very much concerned over 
this bald spot of Mr. Opportunity. She had surely let 
him slip past her many a time, and here she was ar 
nineteen and who knew if he would come again? 

“I just wont stay here working at you forever, now, 
mind that,” she cried, slapping the butter viciously with 
her wooden paddle. “Just let Mr. Opportunity come 
along once more, and see if I let him go! Never 
again !” 

And then she made a daring resolution. She would 
dress up, even if it was Monday morning, and go away 
down to the village, and see if some event wouldn’t 
happen. Something told her that a great adventure was 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 29 

awaiting her just out there on the road if she would 
only go to meet it. 

She packed away the butter in its firm golden bars, and 
went into the house. As she crossed the grassy open 
space, an old-fashioned double buggy went rattling down 
the road. Some one in the back seat waved a gay parasol 
at her, and Christina responded with a flap of her 
apron. 

It was two of the three Miss Grants going to town 
with their adopted nephew, Gavin Hume, who was now 
Gavin Grant. For the very summer that Christina had 
given her berries to the abused little orphan, the Grant 
sisters had rescued him from the dire possibility of being 
taken West by the Skinflint Jenkinses who were moving 
to the prairies. Gavin had grown very dear to the old 
ladies, and indeed it was the joke of the neighbourhood 
how much they petted him. 

“There’s Oor Gavie with two of his Aunties,” called 
Christina to Ellen, who was looking through the door 
to see who was passing. “I guess they are taking him 
to town to help him choose a new necktie.” 

Ellen laughed. The Grant Girls, as they were still 
called, were certainly foolish enough over Gavin to do 
it. They were still Mrs. Lindsay’s closest friends, and 
“Oor Gavie’s” virtues were well known in the Lindsay 
family. 

“I’m all done now,” declared Christina, standing in the 
middle of the kitchen, and waving her apron vigorously. 
“And as it is my birthday, I think I’ll go off and look 
for an adventure. I feel as if something’s got to happen 
to-day, or I’ll set fire to the house.” 

Her elder sister turned from her pie-baking to look 
at her. “Well, my goodness,” she exclaimed, “sometimes 
I think you’re not in your right mind.” Ellen was staid 
and steady and well behaved and could never compre- 


3 o IN ORCHARD GLEN 

hend Christina's restlessness. “Whatever do you want 
now ?” 

“I want to go to the University; that's the exact 
truth. But as I can’t go before dinner, I believe I’ll walk 
down into the village instead, and see if I can meet Mr. 
Opportunity.” 

“Mr. What?” asked Ellen in alarm. If Christina had 
any smallest notion of dressing up and parading the 
village street when the young men came down to the 
corner, as some of the girls did, she, Ellen, would look 
after her right thoroughly. “Who’s he ?” 

Christina laughed unroariously. “Oh, I must tell 
Uncle Neil!” she cried. “Don’t worry, he’s awfully old 
and bald, so there’s no danger.” 

She darted out to the garden to share the joke with 
Uncle Neil, and then she slipped into the house, un- 
noticed, and up to her own room. She felt as excited 
as if she were planning to run away. She dressed very 
carefully in her afternoon gingham of blue that looked 
pale beside the colour of her eyes. She made a coronal 
of her heavy golden brown braids, winding them round 
her shapely head, making a face at herself in the glass 
because the hair was so straight and her nose was so 
freckled. And then she slipped down the stairs like 
a thief and ran down the path behind the spring house. 
She would not have confessed it, even for a college 
course, but she was wondering if, in this wild expedi- 
tion to meet Mr. Opportunity, one might not meet one’s 
Dream Knight riding out there on the highway. For 
though Christina had nev£r had a lover, she had her 
true Knight, who rode just beyond the horizon. And 
why shouldn’t she meet him to-day? Anything won- 
derful was liable to happen on a May morning when 
you were just nineteen and were running away from the 
beaten track in search of adventure. 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 3r 

The path that ran down behind the spring house and 
across the corner of the clover field was the Short Cut 
to the village. It ran into a little grove, and there 
Sandy had made a very primitive stile to enable Mary 
to get over the fence without spoiling her Sunday 
clothes. All the fields were bordered with a fringe of 
feathery green bushes, from which rose the sweet 
roundelays of the song sparrows. The meadow larks 
soared and called to each other over the green-brown car- 
pet of the earth, and away up against the dazzling blue of 
the sky the bob-o’-links danced and trilled. Christina 
gave a joyous skip as she entered the little grove. There 
the sunlight lay on the underbrush in great golden 
splashes, and the White Throat called “Canada, Canada, 
Canada/’ as if he could never leave off. 

She ran joyously down the pathway that led to the 
road, and there, just at the edge of the stile, under 
the low bushes, her sharp eye caught something white. 
Her heart gave a leap ; here, surely, was the Great Ad- 
venture waiting for her. She ran forward and found 
a basket hidden away under the stile. It was covered 
carefully with a newspaper, and, wonder of wonders, 
bore a card with her name, “Miss Christina Lindsay/’ 
She pulled it out breathlessly and tore off the cover. 
Beneath was a perfect glory of garden flowers, great 
crimson and golden tulips, narcissi, waxy white with 
golden hearts, purple hyacinths, filling the woods with 
their perfume, and such a wealth of daffodils as would 
take away the breath. 

Christina stood with her arms full, and looked at 
them with a feeling that was very much like dismay. 
There was only one garden in the township that could 
produce a basket like that, and it belonged to her moth- 
er’s friends, the Grant Girls, but Christina well knew 
they had not sent her the birthday gift. In a corner; 


32 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

of the card was written in very small letters, “From 
G. G.” 

Though Christina was nineteen she had never had 
what was termed in Orchard Glen society, “a fellow/' 
There was no girl having reached such an age with- 
out the pleasant experience of a special notice from 
some young man, but must stop and ask herself the 
reason. Christina had long ago put her poverty down 
to her lack of beauty. But she was not very much 
troubled over it, for her Dream Knight still rode gaily 
just beyond the horizon, and who knew when he might 
not ride up to her door? But though his outlines were 
very hazy, Christina knew in her heart that he was al- 
together and entirely unlike Gavin Grant. 

Gavin was shy and awkward, and had lived so long 
away on the back concession with his Aunties, where the 
grass grew in the middle of the corduroy road, that he 
had grown as queer and old-fashioned as they were. 
But ever since the day Christina had saved him from 
Skinflint Jenkins’ horse- whip, he had shown a tendency 
to follow her with adoringly humble eyes. He had 
made no further attempt to attract her attention until 
now. And here was his first gift ! And worst of all he 
must have told his Aunts about it! Christina hastily 
pushed the basket back, and seating herself upon the 
stile, looked down at it. 

The first offering from Love’s treasure house could 
not but make the heart beat faster; but what a disap- 
pointment that it should come through Gavin Grant of 
all people ! How Jimmie would tease her, and how Mary 
;would laugh — Mary, who had so many beaux sending her 
presents that she did not know what to do with them 
all. And Sandy, — no, Sandy would not laugh. Sandy 
liked Gavin and said he was one of the best fellows he 
knew. But his virtues were not the sort that a Dream 


APPLE-BLOSSOM DAYS 


33 

Knight possessed, especially when you were only nine- 
teen and out on the road for adventure. 

Christina sat on the stile and gazed down the road 
that crossed the little brown stream and then became the 
village street. She could see the church spire above the 
orchard trees, and hear the “cling clung” of Mark Falls’ 
blacksmith shop, and the shouts of the school children 
out for their morning recess. But there was no smallest 
sign of an additional adventure. Evidently this was 
the announcement of her fate. And as she sat there, 
filled with restless longing, a car appeared in a cloud 
of dust away on the hilltop at the other end of the vil- 
lage, and even in the midst of her disappointment Oppor- 
tunity was speeding towards her on rapid wheels. 


CHAPTER II 


Away From Orchard Glen 

M RS. JOHNNIE DUNN, driving home from town 
in her new Ford car, spun down the hill and 
through the village, without even stopping at the post 
office. 

Mrs. Dunn was the only truly emancipated woman of 
Orchard Glen; her husband was a quiet, shy little man, 
whom every one called “Marthy,” and he always re- 
ferred proudly to his clever wife as “The Woman.” She 
managed her husband, her household, her farm, and a 
dozen other enterprises such as no woman was ever 
supposed to be able to manage, and did it all in such 
a thoroughly capable manner that she was the envy and 
the scandal of the whole neighbourhood. 

Her latest escapade had been to buy up the old 
Simms place, next to her own farm, turn it all into pas- 
ture for cows, buy a milking machine and a Ford car, 
and go dashing into town every morning with milk for 
a list of customers that astonished all the milkmen of 
the district. And she often came tearing back to her 
day’s work when the lazy village folk were shaking 
the breakfast tablecloth out of the back doorl 

As she came storming down into the village on this 
bright May morning, Marmaduke Simms was sitting on 
the store veranda as usual, with his peg leg displayed 
upon a soap box, as his eternal excuse for his idleness. 
But there was no excuse for Trooper Tom Boyd, The 
34 


AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN 


35 


Woman’s own nephew, whose two perfectly good legs 
were stretched out beside him, and all in the middle of a 
morning in the middle of seeding! 

Trooper Tom had once ridden the prairies in the 
Mounted Police force, but though he had been one of 
the most fearless riders of the plains, he was frankly 
afraid of his Aunt. He had fully intended to be back 
in the field before her return, and now, when her car 
appeared upon the hill half-an-hour earlier than it should 
have come, he gave a start of dismay. 

“Great Ghosts,” cried Marmaduke, “it’s The Woman, 
sure as death!” 

Trooper Tom gathered his long limbs together in one 
swift spasm, and leaped to cover through the store door- 
way. 

“I ain’t a bit scairt of her, Tilly,” he remarked to the 
store-keeper’s daughter, as he landed tumultuously 
against the counter, “but I just remembered all of a sud- 
den that I wanted to buy a box o’ matches.” 

Tilly leaned against the counter and went off into a 
spasm of giggles, while the car stormed past the store 
in a cloud of reproving dust. Marmaduke reached his 
head around the door-post. “She’s gone, Trooper, . he 
whispered, as though afraid that The Woman might 
hear, “and, say, I guess you’re goin’ to have swell 
company. She’s got a passenger, and he waved his hat 
at me and yelled.” 

Trooper ventured out upon the veranda, followed by 
Tilly. 

“Like as not he was yellin’ for help,” he suggested. . 

“It’s a man, sure enough, Trooper,” said Tilly, with 
a giggle. “Guess she’s goin’ to give you the sack, and 
she’s brought him out to do the seedin’.” 

“Too good to be true,” sighed the young man mourn- 
fully. “’Most likely it’s an implement agent. The 


36 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

Woman’s always buyin’ something new made o’ wheels.” 

“She’ll be gettin’ a machine to wind you up and set 
you goin’ at four in the mornin’,” said Duke comfort- 
ingly. “Sit down and have a smoke, she’ll know you’re 
gone in a minit anyhow.” 

Meanwhile the car bumped across the little bridge 
that spanned the creek and went storming up the op- 
posite hill. And at the top of the hill sat Christina 
Lindsay on the fence top wishing with all her might and 
main that Mr. Opportunity would come out and meet 
her. 

As soon as Mrs. Johnnie Dunn saw her, she stopped 
her car opposite the stile with a word to the man at 
her side. He picked up his suit-case and stepped hur- 
riedly from the car. 

“Hello, there, Christine!” shouted The Woman, over 
the stranger’s shoulder, “here’s a man from Algonquin 
wants a place to board. Do you think your mother’d 
take him?” 

The stranger came forward looking intently at Chris- 
tina, with a twinkle in his eye. He was stout, with iron- 
grey hair. His bronzed face was good to look at, 
and he had a loud hearty voice, and a breezy manner. 
He raised his hat with elaborate politeness. 

“I hope you can take a stranger in for a week or 
two,” he said. “I heard that the Lindsays are noted for 
their hospitality.” 

“I’m afraid we can’t, but I’ll ask mother,” said Chris- 
tina, coming down off the fence to a more formal posi- 
tion. She spoke rather stiffly, for the stranger’s air of 
easy familiarity rather put her on her dignity. 

Mrs. Johnnie Dunn still sat in her churning car and 
looked on with laughing eyes. “Take him along up home 
and show him to your Ma, and see if she likes him,” she 


AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN 37 

shouted “’cause if youse folks won’t keep him, I’ll have 
to cart him back to town.” 

The stranger burst into a laugh. It was a big, hearty, 
noisy laugh, with something in it that arrested Chris- 
tina s attention. He shut up his eyes just the way Sandy 
did, and he showed his two rows of teeth just like Neil, 
and he threw back his head exactly like John, and it 
surely couldn’t be, and yet it really was, 

“Allister !” screamed Christina, and the next moment 
she was over the fence, with her arms tight round the 
stranger’s neck, and was saying over and over, “Oh, 
Allister, Allister, I just knew something awfully good 
was going to happen, and it’s you!” 

And The Woman, who could carry through a busi- 
ness deal with a high hand and was a terror in a bar- 
gain, sat in her car and watched the brother and sister, 
with the tears blurring her vision. 

It was not until the day’s work was done and the 
reunited family were gathered round the supper table 
that the Lindsays had time to realise the wonderful fact 
that Allister had come home. 

He sat in the centre of an admiring circle and told 
all his experiences of the past ten years, shouting occa- 
sional bits of the history to Grandpa, who was sitting 
devouring him with his eyes. 

There were the first hard years when everything went 
wrong; the year he was hailed out, and the year the 
frost got everything, and the year of the great prairie 
fires when he was on the verge of throwing everything 
up and coming back to Ontario. But there had 
been good years in between and finally he had begun 
to move up the hill. Everything in the West moved in 
the same direction, and now he had a big ranch and some 
coal mine shares, and building lots in Prairie Park 
where real estate was going up like a sky rocket. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


38 

And the truth of the matter was that if everything 
went all right he would be a rich man some day not far 
distant. And he was planning that when he sold out 
and got from under some of his schemes he would 
come home and fix up the old farm and make it the 
finest place in Ontario. He was going to buy all the new 
machinery for John, and have electric light, 

“And a piano,” put in Christina, “we need one far 
worse than we need a hay loader, don’t we, Mary?” 

“You’ll have one some day if I go bust,” shouted 
Allister, and went on to tell of profits and prices and 
real estate deals. His mother’s face looked a little wist- 
ful, but if there was rather much talk of money and 
none, of the wealth that thieves cannot steal, she put aside 
her disappointment. Allister was home, he was well 
and prosperous and that was surely enough happiness 
for one day. She sat beside him, keeping tight hold of 
his hand, patting it occasionally and repeating Gaelic 
words of endearment, precious words he had not heard 
since he was a child and which brought a sting to his 
eyes. 

The family conference did not last long, for the 
neighbours had heard that Allister Lindsay was home 
from the West, and the chores were not nearly com- 
pleted when visitors began to arrive to welcome the 
long absent one. The girls hurried about their work, 
while Allister ran here and there and got in every one’s 
way. He followed Christina down to the milking and 
back again to the spring house and helped her with the 
separator, and she was rapturously happy that he should 
single her out for special notice. 

He was back at the barnyard with Uncle Neil again, 
when she came out of the barn with a basket of eggs. 
Uncle Neil was turning the cows into the back lane to 
drive them up to the pasture. 


AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN 


39 


“Here, Uncle Neil, let me do that,” cried Allister. 
“I want to see what it feels like to drive the cows to 
the back pasture again. Hurrah here, Christine! Come 
along with me, for fear I get lost !” 

Christina fairly threw her basket of eggs at Uncle 
Neil, and ran after her brother. They walked hand in 
hand up the lane like a couple of children. 

“Maybe you wanted to go back to the house and get 
dolled up before the boys come,” he said, looking down 
at her big milking apron. 

Christina eyed him suspiciously. She was wonder- 
ing if he was thinking that she needed much more fixing 
up than her sisters. 

“No,” she answered, “I’m beautiful enough without. 
It’s just girls like Ellen and Mary that need to be fussing 
over their looks.” 

Allister looked down at her in admiration that was 
impossible to mistake. 

“By ginger, you’re right,” he shouted heartily ; “you’re 
the sort of a girl for me. Say, what would you say to 
coming out West and keeping house for me?” 

Here was Opportunity come back to her! Christina 
seized him tightly. 

“Oh, my! Wouldn’t that be grand. It would be the 
very best — well, the second best thing in the world !” 

“And what would be the very best ?” 

“To go to the University with Sandy next Fall !” she 
answered promptly. 

“Well, I declare!” Allister laughed, “you’ve all been 
bitten by the education bug. Mr. Sinclair used to say 
that if father was to change the catechism, he’d have it 
read : ‘Man’s chief end is to glorify God and get a good 
education.’ ” 

“Just what I believe exactly !” declared Christina, who 
was trembling with excitement. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


40 

“But girls go and get married, or ought to,” said 
Allister practically. 

“Well, I hope I will some day,” confessed Christina. 
“I don’t want to be an old maid like the Auntie Grants. 
But I want to go away from Orchard Glen first, and see 
what the world’s like — and get a grand education and 
know heaps and do something great — oh, I don’t know 
what, but just something like you read about in the 
papers !” 

The cows were in the pasture by this time, and as 
Allister put up the bars he said, 

“Let’s set down here for a few minutes and settle this 
matter.” 

Christina perched herself at his side on the top of the 
low rail fence. The soft May mists were gathering in 
the valleys, the orchards shone pink in the sunset. Away 
down in the beaver meadow the frogs were tuning up 
for their first overture of evening, and a whippoorwill 
far up in the Slash had begun to sing his lonely song to 
the dark hillside. Allister looked about him and uttered 
a great sigh of contentment. 

“Oh, it’s great to be home again,” he breathed. “Now 
that I don’t have to keep my nose to the grindstone I’m 
going to come home oftener. Things change so. We 
may never all be home again together.” 

“Well, I’d be sorry for that,” said Christina, who was 
fairly dancing with impatience. “But I’d be sorrier if I 
thought things wouldn’t change. We don’t want to live 
here for ever and ever just as we are.” 

“No, of course not. But I hope some of us will al- 
ways be in Orchard Glen. John always will.” 

“I suppose so. John’s spent all his life working hard 
for the rest of us,” cried Qiristina, “and I suppose he’ll 
go on doing it to the end.” 

“There’s nobody better than John,” declared Allister. 


AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN 


41 

“But let me tell you this, that the man or woman, either, 
who gives up all his chance in life to somebody else is 
bound to come out with the small end of the stick. It 
sounds fine, but it don’t pay.” Allister spoke with the 
assurance of the successful man of business. “There’s a 
certain amount of looking out for Number One that’s 
necessary in this pleasant world.” 

Christina was silent. Her heart told her he must be 
wrong, but she could not have argued the matter if she 
would. It did not seem possible that John’s life of self- 
sacrifice and devotion had been a mistake. Something 
that Neil was always quoting was running through her 
head, “There is no gain except by loss.” She could not 
recall it fully, but she remembered distinctly another 
quotation, “Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, 
shall find it.” 

“Well, we’re all getting on in the world all right,” 
cried Allister heartily. “I tell you, our family’s doing 
fine. And if I make my pile as I hope to, we’ll all do 
better. I’d like to be able to give Neil and Sandy a lift, 
but Sandy’s ready to go next Fall to the University 
anyway. And it’ll be a good while before Jimmie’s 
ready.” 

“Ellen and Bruce will be married some time next Fall, 
I expect,” said Christina, going over the members of the 
family in her mind. 

“I hate to think of her as a farmer’s wife,” said 
Allister. “If I had her out West I’d do better than that 
for her, but I suppose I might as well tell her I wanted to 
cut her head off.” 

“I should think so !” laughed Christina ; “it’s a dread- 
ful thing to be in love.” 

“Look as if Mary wouldn’t be teaching school long 
either, eh? Mother’ll soon be without a girl if they all 


42 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

keep going off like that. What about the one they call 
Christina ?” 

“Goody! WeVe come to Christina at last! Let’s 
settle her case. Christina will stay at home and milk the 
cows and feed the pigs and bake and scrub and take the 
eggs and butter to Algonquin on Saturdays. She will be 
the old maid sister with the homy hands, who always 
bakes the pies and cakes for Christmas when the family 
come home !” 

Allister threw back his head and laughed into the 
coloured heavens till the echoes came back sharply from 
the whippoorwill’s sanctuary on the hillside. 

“Never!” he cried heroically, waving the long stick 
with which he had driven the cows up the lane. “Never! 
Let me die before I see the day! No, sir eel Christina 
will go to the University and take all the gold medals, 
or whatever truck it is they get there, and she’ll be a 
high-brow and go travelling over the country lecturing 
on Women’s Rights !” 

“I do believe I’d do it, even the lecturing part, for the 
sake of the college course,” she declared. “Oh, Allister, 
I’m simply aching to get away and have a good educa- 
tion and be — be somebody — even if it’s only a Woman’s 
Righter!” 

“Hooroo! I’m with you. I guess your education 
won’t break me. You’ve got the kind of spirit that’s 
bound to win, so off you go. You get your sunbonnet 
and all the fal-lals girls have to get, and be ready next 
Fall to finish your High School and then it’s you for 
college !” 

“Allister !” She turned to look at him. It just could 
not be that he meant what he said. Her eyes were like 
stars in the twilight, her voice sank to a whisper. 

“Allister! What are you saying?” 


AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN 


43 

He laughed joyfully. “I’m saying that you can start 
out on the road to glory next September and I’ll foot 
the bills !” he shouted. “You’re deaf as Grandpa!” 

Christina suddenly realised that he really meant it; 
that the glorious unbelievable thing upon which she had 
set her heart was hers. She gave a sudden spring from 
her seat to throw herself in an abandon of gratitude 
upon her brother. But the leap had an entirely different 
result. The unsteady fence rail upon which she sat 
gave a lurch, turned over and Christina and it together 
went crashing into the raspberry and gooseberry bushes 
and thistles and stones of the fence corner. 

Allister jumped from his perch to her assistance. 

“Gosh hang it, girl,” he cried, “you might have killed 
yourself !” 

Christina staggered to her feet, scratched and di- 
shevelled. “Oh, my goodness!” she cried, “to think of 
killing myself at this supreme moment! If I had I’d 
never, never speak to myself again for missing that 
University course!” 

When they got back to the house Christina went about 
in a happy daze. There was no opportunity to do 
more than whisper the wonderful news to Sandy, and 
then she had to fly about to help put everything in 
order before the guests arrived. 

The Lindsay home was at all times a popular gathering- 
place of an evening, for there was always plenty of com- 
pany and music there, and a jolly time. Indeed Uncle 
Neil was in the habit of saying that, when the milk pails 
were hung out along the shed they were like the Stand- 
ard on the Braes o’ Mar, for when the young fellows 
of the countryside saw them, they came flocking over the 
hills. And indeed the last pail had scarcely been washed 
and put in its place to-night when the first visitor ap- 
peared in the lane. 


44 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


Uncle Neil, coming up from the pump in the orchard, 
with two pails of fresh water, announced that the whole 
MacKenzie family were coming across the field, and 
burst into the song that always set Ellen’s cheeks flam- 
ing. 

“MacDonald’s men, Clan Donald’s men, 

MacKenzie’s men, MacGillivray’s men, 

Strath Allan’s men, the Lowland men 
Are coming late and early !” 

“MacGillivray’s man’s coming early to-night, Mary!” 
called Sandy. “There’s his buggy cornin’ up the line! 
Man, it’s easy to see he hasn’t any chores in the even- 
ing!” 

“I’m all behind the times!” cried the new brother. 
“Tell me all about this MacGillivray man. He’s a new 
one !” 

He caught hold of Mary as she came in from the 
spring house, but she dodged him. This MacGillivray 
man was a new and quite special cavalier. He was no 
country boy from a neighbouring farm, but a prosperous 
young merchant from Port Stewart, a town some dozen 
miles away on the lake shore. Driving through the 
country one bright day in early spring, he had met Mary 
on her way to school, and had never got over the sight. 
Since then he had driven out all the way to Orchard 
Glen many a night for a repetition of the vision. 

“Will you finish for me, Christine?” Mary whispered 
in a panic. “I’m not fixed up yet, and he’s coming up the 
lane.” 

Christina promised and hurried her away. It didn’t 
matter, she reflected, whether she was dressed in her 
best or her milking apron. There was no MacGilli- 
vray’s man or MacKenzie’s man, Highland or Lowland, 
coming over the hills to see her. And then she sud- 


AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN 


45 

denly remembered with dismay the flowers that must be 
still lying under the bushes at the stile ! 

She hurried through her work, threw off her apron, 
smoothed her hair, and ran down the path to the grove. 
The evening shadows had full possession now, and there 
were no splashes of gold on the undergrowth. The 
veeries were ringing their bells in the tree tops and a cat 
bird was fairly spilling out music of a dozen delightful 
varieties from a hidden corner behind a basswood bush. 
Christina ran down the path and parted the undergrowth. 
The basket was gone! She searched in every corner. 
And then she remembered that on her way out to the 
milking she had seen Gavin driving home from town. 
He had taken the basket back, lest she should not find 
it ! She turned and went slowly back up the path, feel- 
ing ashamed and a little relieved. He would never know 
that she had seen it, and yet it seemed too bad not to 
thank him for such a beautiful gift ! 

She hastened back to help Grandpa to bed. Grandpa 
always sang his evening hymn just before he went to 
sleep, and as he lived in the belief that every one was as 
deaf as himself, it was well to get the performance over 
before the house was filled with company. 

Grandpa had a very ancient little hymn book with an 
orange cotton cover which had been one of Grandma’s 
treasures, and which was now his most prized possession. 
Grandma Lindsay had been a Methodist before her mar- 
riage, and under her influence Grandpa had often been 
in danger of wandering from the paths of Presby- 
terianism. He would have considered it a great sin to 
confess that this old hymn book with its gospel songs 
was more to him than the psalms of David, and he 
would never have dreamed of introducing one of them 
into family worship. But he loved every line inside the 
tattered orange covers, and their bright melodies had 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


46 

helped him over many a hard place after Grandma had 
left him. His favourite hymn* was the last in the 
book, ‘‘The Hindmost Hymn,” Grandpa called it, and 
every night of his life, unless he were too ill, he sang at 
least one verse of its sweet promise, 

^On the other side of Jordan, 

In the sweet fields of Eden, 

Where the tree of Life is blooming, 

There is rest for you. 

There is rest for the weary, 

There is rest for the weary. 

There is rest for the weary, 

There is rest for you!” 

“Aren’t you too tired to sing the Hindmost Hymn 
to-night, Grandpa?” asked Christina slyly. But Grandpa 
did not fall into the trap. 

“Tired? Hoh! Me tired! And the Lad jist come 
home ! Indeed it will be more than a hymn I’ll be rais- 
ing to the Lord this night. I’ll jist be singing Him a 
psalm, too, for He has brought Joseph back to the land 
of Israel.” 

Christina was ashamed of her subterfuge, and joined 
him in his psalm of gratitude, feeling that she, too, 
should raise a song of thanksgiving for all that had 
come to her on this wonderful day. So she joined 
Grandpa’s shaking notes in 

“Oh, thou, my soul, bless God the Lord; 

And all that in me is 
Be stirred up by His holy name 
To magnify and bless!” 

And then they finished with every verse of the Hind- 
most Hymn. Though Grandpa never confessed it, he 
had a secret hope, every night, as he lay down to sleep, 
that all his aches and pains might be at an end and that 
the next morning he would waken “on the other side 


AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN 


47 

of Jordan, in the sweet fields of Eden/’ and he liked to 
close the day with the cheering words. 

So Christina sang it with him to the very end and 
then tucked him into his big feather bed. She left his 
door into the winter kitchen ajar so that he could hear 
the singing, which they were sure to have. Then she 
helped her mother air the spare room for Allister, and 
put a little fire in the shiny box stove in the hall, for 
the May evening was chilly. 

By the time she had finished all her little duties the 
house was full of visitors. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn and 
“Marthy” were the first, the former eager to retell the 
manner of her introduction of Allister to his family. 

The McKenzies, who lived on the next farm above, 
were all there, and Bruce was helping Ellen carry chairs 
out to the veranda. The Browns, a big family who 
lived just across the road from the Lindsays, were in 
the kitchen, and young Mr. MacGillivray’s horse was 
in the stable and he himself was seated in the parlour 
talking to Uncle Neil, and looking at Mary. 

Then there was quite a little crowd coming up from 
the village, Tilly Holmes and Joanna Falls, the black- 
smith’s handsome daughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Martin, 
who owned the mill, people of some consequence in 
Orchard Glen, for Mrs. Martin had been a school teacher 
before her marriage. Then there was Burke Wright, 
who worked in the mill, and his little wife ; Trooper Tom 
Boyd and his chum Marmaduke, and even Mr. Sin- 
clair, the Presbyterian minister, and his wife, all come 
to do honour to the long-absent son of Orchard Glen. 

Christina joined Tilly Holmes and Bell Brown and 
some more girls of her own age in a corner of the 
veranda and told them all about Allister’s sudden ap- 
pearance, and how she had taken him for a stranger 
looking for a place to board, and how he had promised 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


48 

to send her to the High School next Fall and then to the 
University with Sandy ! 

The young folk bunched together in the semi-darkness 
of the veranda, laughing and teasing, the older women 
gathered with Mrs. Lindsay in the parlour, and the men 
collected about Allister in the greater freedom of the 
kitchen, where coats could be laid aside and pipes taken 
out, and they sat astride their chairs in the smoke and 
listened to him tell about the prairies and the wheat crop 
of Alberta and the prices of real estate. 

It was just like a party, Christina felt, as she ran here 
and there, waiting on the guests, and trying hard not to 
think about the glory of the future. 

Uncle Neil came to the veranda door in his stocking 
feet and shirt sleeves. 

“Come away in here, you musicians,” he called, “Alli- 
ster wants to hear some of the old songs !” 

There was much holding back and shoving of others 
forward, and many declarations of heavy colds and a 
rooted inability to sing at any time, but finally some of 
the girls were persuaded to move inside, and the boys 
followed. 

Minnie Brown was organist in the Methodist church, 
so she was invited to the place of honour on the organ 
stool. Ellen lit the big lamp with the pink shade, and 
Trem. Henderson, who was the leader in musical 
circles and whom everybody called Tremendous K., 
was called in from the smoky region of the kitchen to 
start the singing. 

They sang several of the old hymns first, so that 
Grandpa might enjoy them; and then Allister sent Sandy 
in from the kitchen to say that he must have some of 
the good old rousing Scotch songs they used to sing 
when he was home. So Mary brought out the old tartan- 
covered song-book and they sang it through, from the 


AWAY FROM ORCHARD GLEN 


49 

dreamy wail of “Ye Banks and Braes” to the rollicking 
lilt of the Hundred Pipers when 

“Twa thousand swam ower to fell English ground, 

An’ danced themselves dry to the pibroch’s sound!” 

It was a grand old-time evening, such as was not so 
often indulged in as when times were newer and money 
scarce. When Mrs. Lindsay and the girls had passed 
around cake and pie and big cups of tea thick with 
cream the festivity was over, and the company moved 
away down the lane in the soft May moonlight. 

And Christina and Sandy hung over the garden gate, 
like a pair of lovers, long after the last guest had gone, 
and made wonderful plans for the future, when they 
would be going to the University together. 


CHAPTER III 


“Whosoever Will Lose His Life” 

C HRISTINA was sitting in the old hammock on the 
veranda, ready for church. She had already done 
a big morning’s work. For, though the Sabbath was 
rigidly kept in the Lindsay home, and made a day of 
rest as much as possible, the usual multitude of barn- 
yard duties had to be attended to, for the chickens and 
the pigs and the calves clamoured just as loudly for their 
breakfast on Sabbath morning as any week day. 

But Christina’s work was all done and she was neatly 
dressed; her heavy golden brown braids were placed in 
a shining crown about her head, and her freshly ironed 
white dress and her white canvas shoes were immaculate. 
For her keen sense of a lack of beauty had taught her 
the value of scrupulous neatness. She was studying her 
Sunday School lesson, and her white gown and her bright 
head bent over the open Bible on her lap, made her look 
not unlike a young saint at her meditations ; which was 
an entirely misleading picture, for Christina’s mind was 
rioting joyously across the University campus, far away 
from Orchard Glen and Sabbath calm, even though her 
eyes were reading words such as never man spake, 
“Therefore, take no thought for your life, what ye 
shall eat or drink ... is not the life more than meat, and 
the body than raiment?” 

“Are you really ready?” cried Sandy in admiring 
astonishment, as he settled himself beside her in the 
50 


'WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE’ 


hammock. “You never take half as much time as the 
other girls to get dolled up !” 

It was more than two months since Allister had gone 
back to the West, and Neil had left for his summer 
Mission Field away out on the prairies. July was march- 
ing over the hills, trailing the glory of her clover- 
blossom gowns, her arms ladened with sweet-smelling 
hay. The pink blossoms were blown from the orchard 
and instead the trees were hung with a wealth of tiny 
green globes. Inside the house and about the barnyard 
there were changes also, for Allister had been very 
generous, especially to John, and his labours had been 
very much lightened by machinery. 

Christina sat with her fingers between the leaves of 
her Bible, her thoughts far away on the shining road to 
success which she and Sandy were so soon to take. For 
her the days could not move fast enough. 

“My, but I wish I didn’t have that year of High 
School to put in first,” she declared. “But then I suppose 
I wouldn’t be satisfied if I were a B. A. and you a Ph. D. 
But I’m going to study like a runaway horse next win- 
ter,” she added, growing incoherent in her joy, “and 
maybe I’ll catch up to you, Mr. Alexander Lindsay.” 

Sandy lay back in the hammock and gazed up at the 
festoons of little green balls, hanging in the trees. He 
did not respond with his usual readiness to his sister’s 
nonsense. His gaiety seemed to have deserted him lately. 

“I don’t see how you can help getting up on the barn 
and yelling for joy, Sandy,” she declared impatiently. 
“I know I would, every time I think about going to 
college, if I were a boy. But I have several good reasons 
for not expressing myself in that manner. Ellen’s one, 
and Mrs. Sinclair’s another, and then I’m really a very 
well behaved young woman anyway, and I’m going to 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


52 

be a lady some day, and it might not be well to have 
such dark places in my past.” 

Sandy laughed rather forcedly. “It’ll be time enough 
for me to yell, when I’ve got something to yell about,” 
he said. “ ‘Don’t holler till you’re out of the bush,’ is 
a good old adage. And I’m a long way from being out 
of it yet.” 

“What do you mean?” asked Christina in alarm. 

“I was talking things over with John last night, and 
we’re afraid we can’t manage for me to go this year. 
Allister lost some money in real estate last month, and 
can’t be depended on to help John as much as he ex- 
pected. I’ve almost decided to go down and see Mitchell 
about the Anondell school. They wrote yesterday asking 
me to take it again.” 

“Oh, Sandy! Oh!” Christina’s tone was full of 
unbelieving dismay. “I can’t believe it. Surely, — oh, 
John won’t let you stay! Something can be done 
surely ” 

“Oh, of course John wants me to go and he’d 
manage somehow. But I won’t let him. It would cut 
Neil short too. It’s no use making a row over it,” he 
concluded stoically. “It just can’t be helped.” 

But Christina was inconsolable. It required a great 
deal of explaining to convince her that it was not all 
an evil dream. She just couldn’t and wouldn’t believe 
it. It was harder to bear Sandy’s disappointment than 
if it had been her own. He found he had to undertake 
the role of comforter and try to convince her it was 
not such a disaster after all. There was no use making 
a row over what couldn’t be helped, he repeated again 
and again. She would catch up to him in the year 
she would have at school, and who knew but they 
might enter college together. 

But Christina could only sit and stare in silence down 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 53 

the orchard aisle to where the sun was glowing, richly 
purple, on the last uncut clover field. The glory had 
departed from the morning, and the glory had departed 
too, from the road to success which she and Sandy were 
to have taken together. For she alone realised what a 
bitter disappointment this was to Sandy. He would 
never complain, she well knew, nor indulge in self-pity, 
but she did know that there was grave danger of his 
throwing away the hope of a University education 
altogether, and going into business or perhaps back to 
the farm. For if he did not start this year, how was 
one to know what might happen before the next year? 
She sat perfectly silent, and when Christina was silent 
she was in deep trouble. Sandy strove in vain to cheer 
her. “Never mind. Don’t let it worry you,” he said 
bravely. “I can study nights and perhaps I won’t lose 
so much time. And if I can’t manage it next year I 
can go out West with Allister. Come along, let’s get 
to church.” 

She rose slowly, and as slowly went into the house 
to see if Grandpa were comfortable. They left him in 
a cool comer of the winter kitchen with his Bible and 
hymn-book and Sport at his feet. The family gathered 
on the veranda, and though Christina’s mind was so 
disturbed, she did not forget to see that her mother had 
a clean handkerchief, and that her bonnet was on 
straight. 

Mary was like a fairy in her white muslin dress, and 
Ellen looked unusually radiant, in a new blue silk, a 
present from Allister. But Ellen had an especial reason 
for looking radiant these days. For a long time she 
and Bruce had nursed the hope that he might study 
medicine one day, and Dr. McGarry had promised to 
hand him over all his practice the day he graduated. 
Times had been too hard on the McKenzie farm for 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


54 

Bruce to leave, but crops had been good for several years 
now, and he had almost decided to try the University. 
And Ellen, who shared the Lindsay ambition to the full, 
was sharing his joy and urging him on. 

John walked by his mother’s side, and Christina fell 
behind between Sandy and Jimmie. Usually her mother 
had to rebuke the hilarity of these three on Sabbath 
mornings, but to-day Christina was so quiet that Jimmie 
enquired if she were sick. 

They passed silently through the little gate between 
the lilac bushes, and down the lane to where the tall 
poplars stood guard at the entrance to the farm. When 
their mother accompanied them the Lindsays never went 
by the Short Cut, for even Sandy’s stile was too difficult 
a climb for her. 

As they passed out onto the Highway they were joined 
here and there by groups of church goers. For every- 
body in Orchard Glen except two or three odd characters, 
went to church, and Sunday was a day of pleasant social 
intercourse, such as no other time of the busy week 
afforded. 

It was a real relief, too, from the long strain of six 
days’ toil, and as yet neither the pleasure-seeker nor the 
money-getter had interfered seriously with its grateful 
peace. It was a day when you took yourself out of 
your toilsome environment, dressed in your best, and 
drove or walked leisurely to church, with a feeling of 
ease and well-being that no hurried pleasure-seeking 
could ever give. And you met all your friends and 
neighbours there, and had a word with them, and inci- 
dentally you were reminded that while crops and cattle 
and fine horses and motor cars and a swelling bank ac- 
count were good things to possess ; like the work of the 
past week, they would be put away one day, while the 
unseen things would remain. 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 55 

The McKenzies came down the path from the farm 
above, the whole family, from Old Johnnie, who was an 
elder, to Katie, who was Christina’s age. They paired 
off with the Lindsays, and Bruce and Ellen dropped 
behind, for they had gotten so far on their courtship, 
that they even walked to church together, in broad day- 
light, a stage that was supposed to immediately precede 
a wedding. 

The young folk from the Browns came pouring out 
of their gate. The Browns were Methodists and the old 
folk went only to their own church which held its 
meetings in the evening. But youthful Orchard Glen 
practised Church Union very persistently, and the 
Browns were only following the usual custom when they 
went to each church impartially. 

Mrs. Johnnie Dunn and Marthy came bouncing past 
in their car. The Woman was a Methodist, but Marthy 
was a Presbyterian so they went to both churches. 
Trooper Tom never went with his Aunt anywhere that 
could be avoided and he came down the pathway with 
the wide stride that marked him for a rider of the plains, 
and walked beside Sandy. 

They were down in the village proper now, and every 
house sent out its representatives. The village did not 
begin until the Lindsay hill had been descended and the 
little bridge that spanned the brown stream crossed, and 
right on the bank stood the tiny cottage where little Mitty 
Minns and her old invalid grandmotherdived. Mitty had 
lately married Burke Wright who worked in the flour 
mill, and was now emerging from the gate with her 
new husband, fairly bubbling over with joy and pride 
at being off alone with him for a few hours, away from 
Granny’s complainings. 

Across the street stood a much more imposing 
residence, Dr. McGarry’s red brick, white pillared home 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


56 

Mrs. Sutherland, his widowed sister who kept house for 
him, came rustling out in her best black silk, and wonder 
of wonders, the Doctor with her! 

Joanna Falls, the blacksmith’s daughter, burst from 
the next gate, like a beautiful butterfly from a green 
cocoon. Joanna was glorious in a pink silk and white 
shoes, and a hat trimmed with pink roses. She was a 
very handsome girl, but she was fast nearing the danger 
line of thirty, and a long attachment to Trooper Tom 
Boyd, who was a gay lad, attached to nobody, had 
rather soured Joanna’s temper and sharpened her 
tongue. 

Her father, in his shirt sleeves, was sitting in the 
most conspicuous part of the little veranda with his 
stockinged feet on the railing, smoking his pipe and read- 
ing the newspaper. Mark Falls always managed, when 
the weather permitted, to arrange himself in this position 
on a Sunday before the church goers. He knew it 
scandalised the worshippers and especially angered the 
good old Presbyterians who were strict Sabbatarians. 
Mark made a great parade of his extreme irreligiousness, 
and could tell stories all day long about duplicity of 
ministers and the hypocrisy of church members. Joanna 
was his one orphan child and he was not a very kind 
father, which had added not a little to his daughter’s 
acidity of temper. But they went their several ways quite 
independently, and Joanna’s way was always where 
Trooper Tom Boyd was to be found. 

She happened to come out of her gate just as Trooper 
and Sandy Lindsay were passing together, and of course 
they walked with her. It was surprising how many times 
little coincidents like this happened. Trooper whispered 
something to her and Joanna’s happy laugh could be 
heard all down the line of demure church goers. 

The procession passed the closed and deserted store, 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 57 

but Marmaduke Simms was perched on the veranda, 
and Trooper meanly deserted his fair partner, and 
swung himself up beside his chum, there to wait until 
the sound of the first hymn would assure them they were 
in no danger of being too early for church. 

Tilly Holmes came tripping out of the side door and 
through the garden gate, an entrance used only on the 
Sabbath. The Holmeses were strict Baptists, and their 
service was not held until the afternoon. But they found 
it impossible to keep their children from the promiscuous 
church-going habits of the village and long ago had 
given up the struggle. They even allowed Tilly to belong 
to the Union Presbyterian-and-Methodist Choir, knowing 
that youth will be wayward and you can’t put old heads 
on young shoulders. 

Tilly was trying hard not to giggle, seeing it was Sun- 
day, but she found it particularly difficult, for she had to 
walk beside Joanna, and since Trooper had dropped 
away Joanna’s tongue had become more than usually 
sarcastic. 

The unusual sight of Dr. McGarry going to church 
proved an irresistible opportunity. Mrs. Sutherland was 
never done telling Mrs. Sinclair how the Doctor struggled 
to get to church on Sundays, and all in vain. It seemed 
as though the whole countryside selfishly arranged their 
maladies to prevent his attending the sanctuary. 

“Well my sakes,” declared Joanna, “the Doctor’s 
goin’ to church ! Everybody must a’ got awful healthy 
all at once, or else they’ve all up and died on him.” 

She turned to Mary and Christina who were walking 
behind her. The unimpaired success of the Lindsays was 
particularly trying to Joanna’s temper. 

“Well, how’s that rich brother o’ yours gettin’ on, 
Christine ?” she asked, her black eyes snapping. “I see he 
hasn’t sent you to college yet.” 


58 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


"It's very kind of you to ask after him, Joanna,” said 
Mary smoothly. Mary Lindsay was the one girl in 
Orchard Glen who could put Joanna in her place. “If 
Trooper was of a jealous nature he might object, but he 
doesn’t seem to be that kind at all.” 

Joanna whirled around and addressed herself to Tilly, 
her cheeks flaming. Her love for Trooper Tom, who 
was but a wayward cavalier, was the cause of much 
bitterness and heart-burning. 

They were turning in at the church gate, when an 
old-fashioned double-buggy rattled past, drawn by a 
heavy shining team. A young man was driving and 
there were three very gaily-dressed ladies with him. 

Gavin Grant’s three Aunts were always a sight worth 
seeing on a Sunday. They were lovely ladies, who, by 
the calendar, might have been termed old; but they had 
stopped aging somewhere in the happiest period of 
girlhood. So it was not unfitting that they should dress 
in their girlhood clothes, though they were all of a 
fashion of some thirty years previous. And so, though 
Auntie Elspie’s hair was white and her face wrinkled, and 
Auntie Flora was stooped and rheumatic and Auntie 
Janet stout and matronly, their hearts were young and 
light, and they arrayed themselves accordingly. They 
owned the most wonderful flower garden in the country- 
side and the old democrat looked as if all its hollyhocks 
had come to church, as Gavin pulled up at the door. 
The Grant Girls were all dressed in ancient silks 
and velvets made in the fashion of an early Alexandra 
period, with much silk fringe and old heavy jewellery as 
accessories. 

Gavin carefully helped each of them alight, for the 
Aunties had given much time to their boy’s manners and 
had seen to it that he did not fail in little acts of 
courtesy. And though the women declared that they 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 59 

had “babied” him beyond belief, and the girls said he 
was as much an old maid as any one of them, their 
kindness had not spoiled him for he was as generous 
and unselfish as they were. 

Christina felt the blood mount to her cheeks as she 
caught Gavin's glance. She had never mentioned her 
flowers to him, and always felt ashamed when she saw 
him. 

The three Grant Girls were immediately surrounded by 
friends. Everybody loved them, and their arrival at 
church always caused a pleasant stir. 

Gavin came back from putting his horses into the 
shed and showed them to their seats, where he sat with 
them until it was time for him to go into the choir. 

Christina always went to choir practice, but like many 
another, she did not sing in the choir on Sundays, so 
she went to the family pew with her mother while Mary 
and Ellen joined the singers in the vestibule. 

The congregation were almost all seated, when the 
choir, with Tremendous K. at their head, came hurrying 
down the aisle, and took their places in seats beside the 
pulpit. Joanna Falls was leading soprano, by virtue 
of a voice of peculiar strength and carrying power, 
Gavin Grant, who had the best baritone voice in the 
countryside, led the boys, and Minnie McKenzie, whose 
father was an elder, and Martha Henderson, Tremen- 
dous K.’s sister, played the organ on alternate Sundays — 
an arrangement necessary to prevent a split in the church. 

Mr. Sinclair had been in Orchard Glen for twenty- 
five years, and knew his people better than they knew 
themselves. He realised that the week’s toil was absorb- 
ing, and on Sundays he tried hard to turn his people’s 
eyes away from the things that are passing to those that 
are eternal. And on this morning it seemed to Christina 
that he had chosen his sermon entirely for her benefit. 


6o 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


“For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it;” the 
divine paradox was his text, and he told Christina plain- 
ly that by saving for herself this life of wider experience 
and greater opportunity, she was missing the one great 
opportunity that comes to all souls. She was losing her 
life. 

When church was over and Mr. Sinclair was moving 
about among the people, he came down the aisle and 
gave one hand to Sandy and the other to Christina at 
the same time. 

“Well, well ! and you’ll both be leaving me soon !” he 
cried heartily. “I’m getting used to sending off my 
boys to the University, but it’s a great event when I 
send one of my girls ! Sandy, I want to hear of you in 
Knox yet. That’s your destination, don’t forget. You’ll 
make as good a preacher as Neil any day. Well, well, 
and how are you to-day, Miss Flora — and you Janet — ?” 
He had passed on and was shaking hands with the Grant 
Girls, giving Christina no chance to reply. She glanced 
at Sandy; his eyes were on the floor, but she could read 
his face, and she knew he was struggling with the bitter- 
ness of disappointment. 

She was even more silent on the road home from 
church. Bell Brown and Tilly Holmes chattered away 
on either side of her, asking questions about where she 
would board in Algonquin, and what new dresses she 
would get, and how long she would be at school before 
she would be ready for the University, and wasn’t she 
scared stiff at the thought of studying hard for years and 
years the way folks had to do at college? 

Christina answered absently and when she parted 
with them she surprised herself by suddenly exclaim- 
ing: 

“Oh, don’t talk about my going any more, girls. Maybe 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 61 

I won’t go after all!” and fled from them before they 
could demand explanations. 

That Sunday marked the opening of a period of misery 
for Christina. She worked furiously in house and barn- 
yard, striving to smother the insistent voice that kept 
reiterating, “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it.” 

She had caught Opportunity as he came to meet her, 
determined not to fall into her old error, and now that 
she held him, her full hands were unable to grasp a 
greater prize that was slipping away. Christina did not 
realise all this; she only knew with a feeling of sick 
dismay that Sandy was not going to college and that it 
lay within her power to let him go. 

She was still fighting her battle when Friday evening 
came, the night of the greatest function of all Orchard 
Glen’s weekly events. It was the night when the Tem- 
perance Society met, and though it was still early, 
Christina had finished her work and was ready as usual 
long before the other two girls. She went down the 
orchard path and seated herself beside Sandy on the old 
pump platform. Sport stretched himself out at Sandy’s 
feet, panting with the exertion of putting the cows in 
their place and Christina’s pet kitten curled up at her 
side, the green eyes on guard against the enemy. 

Sandy had striven manfully all week to raise Chris- 
tina’s spirits and he burst into cheerful conversation. 

“What do you suppose, Christine? Bruce says he’s 
got everything fixed up and he’s going to Toronto this 
fall and Dr. McGarry’s tickled to fits. He thinks the 
world of Bruce.” 

“Bruce — Bruce McKenzie !” Christina groaned. 
“Well, I never! It seems as if everybody in Orchard 
Glen was going to the University but you,” she added 
returning to the one subject that absorbed her attention. 

“Well don’t go chewin’ on that all the time,” said 


62 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


Sandy cheerfully. “It’s better to have one fellow left. 
Bruce’s been saving up his money for the last five years.” 

“Ellen won’t have to get married so soon then,” re- 
marked Christina with some feeling of comfort, for 
Ellen’s presence at home made her leaving easier. “But 
oh, Sandy, if only — ” 

“Come along,” cried Sandy jumping up. “It’s time 
we were going. There’s Tremendous K. passing now.” 

Christina went back to the house to see if her mother 
needed anything before she left, and if Grandpa was 
comfortable in bed, and returned to the veranda where 
Sandy stood waiting for her. Bruce and Ellen were 
there ready to start, and Mary and young Mr. Mac- 
Gillivray were already strolling down the lane. 

“Well, Christine,” cried Ellen, her cheeks pink with 
excitement, “how would you like to have Bruce for a 
doctor if you were sick ?” 

More than a year before Bruce McKenzie had been 
prepared for college, but lack of money had stood in his 
way and every one had thought that he and Ellen had 
given up the idea and had decided to settle on the farm. 

“Why, Bruce!” cried Christina, forgetting her own 
trouble for the moment. “Isn’t that too grand for any- 
thing ?” 

“Ellen here says I’ve got to keep up with the family, 
you see,” said Bruce, standing in the midst of the admir- 
ing circle, half proud, half embarrassed. “Everybody in 
Orchard Glen seems to be getting the college fever, and 
Dr. McGarry’s been at me all summer, so I guess I’ll try 
it anyway.” / 

If Sandy had been going Christina would have been 
rapturously happy over this. Ellen’s approaching mar- 
riage had always hung like a cloud on the horizon, but if 
Ellen were going to be left at home until Bruce became a 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 63 

doctor, what a joy that would be. But nothing could 
be a joy now that Sandy’s hopes had been blighted. 

“It’s just bully,” Sandy was saying generously, “I’m 
sorry that” He was interrupted by Christina’s pinch- 

ing his arm, and stopped suddenly. No one noticed in 
the dusk of the veranda, and when they were out in the 
lane, Sandy asked an explanation. “I might as well 
tell everybody first as last,” she said, “it’s decided now. 
And I’d rather tell and get it over.” 

“Oh, don’t,” pleaded Christina, “wait for a little while. 
You don’t know what may happen. Don’t say anything 
about it for a few days, anyway. I — I want to think 
about it. Promise me you won’t, Sandy, till I let you.” 

Sandy promised reluctantly, saying she was a silly 
kid. Thinking for a month, day and night, wouldn’t 
double his bank account, but he promised ; and Christina 
proceeded to think about it as she had said, and to 
think very hard and very seriously all the way down 
to the village. 

The old Temperance Hall was open and already 
several had arrived. Burke Wright, with his little wife, 
Mitty, her face shining at being out alone with her 
husband, were sitting on the steps and Joanna was 
there laughing and chatting with Trooper Tom and, of 
course, Marmaduke Simms, with a crowd of girls. For 
Marmaduke was a sort of lover-at-large and made love 
openly and impartially to all the girls of the village. 

The McKenzie girls had proudly announced that 
Bruce was going away to learn to be a doctor, and 
this piece of news was the chief topic of conversation. 
The girls all half envied Ellen, half pitied her. It took 
a deal of study and a dreadful long time to become 
a doctor, Joanna explained, and as none of the McKen- 
zies were very smart, Ellen would be an old maid before 
Bruce was through. But Ellen seemed radiantly happy. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


64 

and no subject for commiseration, and every one agreed 
that it was just the way with all the Lindsays, there 
was no end to their luck. 

The crowd gathered inside the hall, where a number 
of the boys were bunched in a corner preparing the 
programme with much anxiety. 

After the business of the evening which was never 
very heavy, there was always a programme rendered by 
the boys and girls on alternate evenings. To-night was 
the boys* turn to perform, which always meant a great 
deal of fun for the girls. John Lindsay was President 
of the Society, and was down on the programme for a 
speech on Reciprocity, and there was to be a male chorus, 
both sure to be good numbers, for John had some fame 
as a political speaker, and the boys of Orchard Glen 
could always put up a fine chorus with Tremendous K. 
to beat time and Gavin Grant’s splendid voice to hold 
them all to the right tune. 

So the programme opened auspiciously with the 
chorus. The only trouble was the organist. Sam Hen- 
derson, a brother of Tremendous K., was the only young 
man in Orchard Glen who could play anything more 
complex than a mouth organ, and Sam always seemed 
to have too many fingers. And he pumped the air into 
the bellows so hard that the organ’s gasps could be 
heard far above its strains. 

Then three of the boys played a rousing trio on 
mouth organs, and young Willie Brown played a long 
piece on the violin. Tommy Holmes, Tilly’s brother, 
who worked in Algonquin and came home week-ends, 
then gave a recitation, a comic selection which cheered 
everybody up after the wails of Willie’s fiddle. 

Tremendous K. sang a solo, a splendid roaring sea song 
that fairly made the roof rock, and then John delivered 
his speech and Christina sat and twisted her handkerchief 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 65 

and fidgeted every minute of it, in silent fear lest John 
make a mistake or anybody laugh at him. But John’s 
speech was loudly applauded, though Tremendous K. said 
afterwards there was to be no politics brought into the 
Temperance Society, for Tremendous K. was not of the 
same political party as the President and was not going 
to run any risks of the liberals getting ahead. 

When John had sat down there arose from the back of 
the hall among the young men a great deal of shoving 
and pushing and exhorting to “go to it,” and Gavin 
Grant came forward very reluctant, very red in the face, 
and looking very scared, to sing his first formal solo in 
public. 

Gavin was a tall fellow and well built, but his clothes, 
the majority of which his Aunties still fashioned, were 
always too small and very ill-fitting. They seemed to 
have a tendency to work up to his neck and they were 
all crowding to the top when he lurched forward and 
took his place beside the organ. 

“Gavin always looks as if some one had just carried 
him in by the back of the neck and set him down with 
a thud,” said Joanna, loud enough for all the girls to 
hear. Every one laughed except Christina. She had 
not been able to laugh at Gavin since she had been so 
unkind to his birthday gift. Her heart always smote 
her for the waste of that wonderful basket of blooms. 
Now that she knew she was going away she felt she 
might at least have acknowledged them. 

Meanwhile Gavin had brought out his Auntie Flora s 
oldest song book, “The Casket of Gems,” from its wrap- 
ping of newspaper, and Sam Henderson had once more 
mounted the tread-mill of the organ, and was trampling 
out the opening bars of the solo. Tilly and a few of her 
companions were in convulsions of giggles by this time, 
but when Gavin’s rich voice burst into the first notes, 


66 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


every one was hushed and attentive. He sang without 
the slightest effort, pouring out the melodious sounds as 
a robin sings after rain. 

“In days of old when knights were bold, 

And barons held their sway, 

A warrior bold with spurs of gold 
Sang merrily his lay, 

Sang merrily his lay 

"My love is young and fair, 

My love has golden hair, 

And eyes so blue 

And heart so true 

That none with her compare; 

So, what care I though death be nigh, 

I live for love or die! 

So, what care I though death be nigh, 

I live for love or die !’ ” 

It was a gallant lay of love and war and deathless 
devotion but only one as unsophisticated as Gavin could 
have sung it. For while it was held quite proper for a 
young man to sing of war in a public way, no one with 
a sense of the fitness of things would dare to raise his 
voice in a love song, alone, before an audience of his 
fellows. But Gavin’s voice brought the warrior’s gallant 
presence so vividly before them that not even Tilly felt 
like smiling, and there was a sober hush as the song 
went on to tell how the brave knight 

“Went gaily to the fray. 

He fought the fight 

But ere the night 

His soul had passed away. 

The plighted ring he wore 
Was crushed and wet with gore, 

But ere he died 
He bravely cried, 

‘I’ve kept the vow I swore! 

So what care I though death be nigh, 

I live for love or die. 

I’ve fought for love, for love I die !’ ” 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 67 

The singer put all the valour of his brave young heart 
into the song, all its pent up feeling. For Gavin Hume had 
been born a real diamond in a dark mine of poverty and 
ill-usage ; he had been dug up, and polished and smoothed 
by the loving hands of the three Grant Girls and his 
character was beginning to shine with the lustre that 
comes only from the real jewel. But very few people 
knew this, he was too shy to give expression to the high 
aspirations that thrilled his heart, and only in such songs 
as this did his soul find a medium of expression. There 
was a day coming swiftly upon him, that was to try to 
the utmost all the pent up valour of his reticent nature, 
but as yet that day was all undreamed of. And Christina 
Lindsay, remembering when that day came, this Tem- 
perance meeting, recalled with self-abasement that she 
had thought that Gavin Grant could not have chosen a 
song more unlike himself ; he, so shy and shrinking to 
sing of “A Warrior Bold.” If she had not been so down- 
hearted she would have laughed at him. 

When the song was finished there was a moment’s 
hush over the meeting, and then came a storm of ap- 
plause, long continued. The boys took to clapping and 
stamping rhythmically, and shouting, “More, more,” until 
the old building rocked. 

But Gavin shook his head persistently, and John arose 
and announced the next. This was a comic song by 
Marmaduke Simms, and Duke certainly was a very 
funny fellow. He could imitate anything from Mrs. 
Johnnie Dunn’s car on a steep hill, to the Martins’ 
youngest baby crying. He soon had them all in roars 
of laughter, and the meeting broke up in much gaiety, 
and some anxiety on the part of the girls as to their 
ability to do as well on the next Friday. 

Most of the boys and girls paired off and vanished 
into the darkness. The unfortunate ones who were not 


68 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


yet attached, moved away in bunches. Christina belonged 
to this latter class, unless a brother was with her. But 
Jimmie had disappeared with the boys of his own age, 
John was walking ahead, arguing hotly with Tremendous 
K. about the subject of his address, and Sandy had 
meanly deserted her to go off with a white dress, which 
she had identified as belonging to Margaret Sinclair, 
the minister’s youngest daughter who was home for her 
holidays. Under happier circumstances Christina would 
have been pleased at his choice, but nothing in connection 
with poor Sandy could please her just now. He was 
bearing his disappointment far better than she was, for 
her trouble was worse than a disappointment. The 
unbearable part to her was the fact that stared her in 
the face, the fact that she was deliberately taking the 
privilege denied him. 

She walked away from the hall slowly and silently, 
between Joanna Falls and Annie Brown, for Joanna’s 
cavalier was a very uncertain quantity and poor plain 
Annie had never had a beau in her life. But Joanna 
suddenly remembered that she had left her handkerchief 
on the seat in the hall, and must run back for it before 
Trooper and Duke locked the door. The girls knew 
better than to wait for her, and then Burke Wright and 
Mitty strolled up and began talking with Annie. Christina 
stepped behind them in the narrow pathway for a mo- 
ment, and it was then that a tall figure loomed up beside 
her out of the darkness, and a musical voice with a slow 
Highland accent that it was impossible to mistake, 
repeated the proper formula. 

“May I see you home, Christine ?” 

Christina stopped short in the pathway. Never in all 
her nineteen years had she been asked that momentous 
question ; the opening note of all country romances. She 
had heard it sounded on every side for years but its 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 69 


music had always passed her by. She had begun to 
wonder just a little wistfully, when she would hear it. 
And now here it was! But, alas, like her first birth- 
day gift, it had came from an unwelcome source ! 

But she answered quite cordially, being incapable of 
deliberately wounding any one, and Gavin gave a deep 
breath of relief as he took his place at her side. He 
was too shy to take her arm in the approved fashion, 
as all young men did when seeing a young woman to 
her home. Instead he left a foot or two between them 
as they walked up the hill under the stars in the warm 
scented darkness. 

Christina tried to chat, but Gavin was so overcome 
with the wonder of seeing her home, that he could not 
talk. He longed for some deadly peril to threaten her 
so that he might be her protector, some catastrophe that 
he might avert. 

He was fairly aching to tell her that his great 
ambition was to be her Warrior Bold, and ride out to 
do doughty deeds for her sweet sake; that she was his 
Love so young and fair, of whom he had been singing, 
with eyes so blue and heart so true; but instead, he 
walked dumbly by her side, keeping carefully a yard 
away from her, and answering her laborious attempts at 
conversation with only a word. For Gavin was one of 
the inarticulate poets of earth, a mute, inglorious Love- 
lace, with a heart burdened with unsung lines to his 
Lucasta on going to the wars. 

They had come to one of their prolonged seasons of 
silence, when Christina discovered that they were strol- 
ling slowly behind Old Johnnie McKenzie, Bruce’s 
father, and Mr. Sinclair who was seeing him a piece 
of the way home, for the purpose of rejoicing over the 
good news about Bruce. The minister had been so many 
years in the pulpit that he used his preaching voice on 


7 o IN ORCHARD GLEN 

all occasions, and there was no chance of missing a word 
that he said. 

“This is great news about Bruce, Mr. McKenzie,” he 
.was saying in a full round voice, “great news ! I’d rather 
see him going for the Ministry. But you have brought 
up your lads in the fear of the Lord and Bruce will 
serve his Maker well as a doctor, I’ve no fear. Yes, 
it’s fine news.” 

Mr. Sinclair was greedy of gain of the highest order 
for his flock, and gave parents no rest if he thought 
they were not giving their children the utmost education 
they could afford. It was largely due to him that all 
Orchard Glen looked to the University rather than to 
the counting house as the goal of those who would 
succeed, and that old Knox always had an Orchard 
Glen boy helping to keep her halls noisy. 

“Yes sir, it’s grand to see another of our boys entering 
the University,” he went on, as though delivering his 
Sunday sermon. “And now that Johnnie’s got into the 
High School we’ll have to head him for the ministry. 
He’s a bright lad that Johnnie of yours. Neil Lindsay 
is the only boy we have in Knox now, and there must be 
another coming along before he gets out. I was hoping 
I’d get Sandy Lindsay started to the University this 
Fall, but he seemed to talk to-night as if he wasn’t sure 
of going. I’ll be disappointed if Sandy doesn’t get away 
soon; I was hoping Allister would see him through. 
Sandy would make a fine man in the pulpit. He’s 
got the same gift as John. Man, I hope he won’t be 
kept back. We can’t do without our representative in 
Knox, Mr. McKenzie, the boys must be coming on. And 
your Johnnie will have to be the next. Come away in, 
Mr. McKenzie, and we’ll tell Mrs. Sinclair, this is a day 
of good tidings. Come away in, man.” 

They stepped in at the Manse gate, and Christina and 


WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE 5 


Gavin moved on alone. She had almost forgotten his 
presence, but she turned to him now, because she must 
have some one to confide in. 

“Oh, Gavin, did you hear what he was saying, that 
Sandy might be a minister some day!” 

“But that would be a great thing, wouldn’t it?” asked 
Gavin, surprised out of his shyness at the grief in 
Christina’s voice. 

“But, I’m afraid — Sandy thinks we can’t afford it this 
Fall. I mean for him to go to college,” whispered 
Christina in distress. “And if he doesn’t go now he may 
not go at all. He has had to wait so long.” 

Gavin forgot his shyness entirely in his efforts to com- 
fort her. 

“But you must not be feeling so bad,” he said gently. 
“Is there no way to help it?” 

Christina suddenly remembered that Mr. Sinclair had 
often told her mother that Gavin Grant had both the 
ability and the longing to be a minister, but he would 
never confess his desires, lest they trouble the Aunties. 
Perhaps he could understand her case and advise her, and 
in an impulsive moment, born of her great need, she told 
him all about the cloud that had been hanging over her 
during the past week. 

“I want just dreadfully to go to college and 
get a good education,” she finished up. “You know all 
about it, I’m sure you do, don’t you, Gavin? And 
now I’ve got my first real chance, and if I take it I’ll 
be keeping Sandy back. Perhaps I’ll be keeping him 
from being a minister, and wouldn’t that be dreadful? 
And I don’t know what to do.” 

It did not seem queer, somehow, for her to be asking 
Gavin’s advice about this momentous question, but his 
position was especially difficult. He could not answer 
her for a few minutes. For he knew that he was not at 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


72 

all an unbiased judge. Next to his own going, he wanted 
more than anything else in the world that Christina 
should be left at home. He could hardly bear to think 
of what life in Orchard Glen would be like without the 
chance of looking at her in church or at meeting, and 
occasionally speaking to her. Indeed he would not have 
dared to take this bold plunge of asking to see her home 
to-night had he not known that it would likely be his 
last chance, and that she would soon be gone out of 
his life. 

“I am afraid I would want to go if I was in your 
place,” he confessed at last. “But,” he hesitated shyly, 
“Auntie Elspie always knows what is best, and she has 
always told me that we never lose a thing by giving it 
up for some one else. She gave up all her chances for 
Grandmother Grant and stayed home and cared for her. 
And she let their only brother go to college, while she 
managed the farm at home. And she says now she is 
always glad she did it.” 

He stopped suddenly, embarrassed. It looked as if he 
had actually had the presumption to preach Christina 
a sermon. 

But she did not seem to think so. “And you, your- 
self,” she said, “Mr. Sinclair always wants you to go to 
college, Gavin, and you know you would like to, wouldn’t 
you ?” 

“I am in a very different position from any one like 
you or Sandy,” said Gavin with a new note of sternness 
in his voice. “It is not for me to choose whether I will 
go to college or not. But,” he added hastily, “my 
Aunts would let me go if they could, you may be sure 
of that.” 

Christina’s heart felt a sudden rush of sympathy. She 
guessed what Gavin must suffer, seeing this boy and that 
pass on, leaving him behind. 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 73 

There was another long silence, which he broke. “You 
will always do the kind thing,” he whispered. “You 
could not do anything else.” 

They had come to the big gate between the sentinel 
poplars, and Christina stopped. Mary and young Mac- 
Gillivray were leaning on the little garden gate that led 
in from the lane, and Bruce and Ellen, who had long 
passed the hanging-over-the-gate stage of courtship, had 
gone indoors for something to eat. 

“Oh, I’m afraid you’re all wrong,” she declared ; “I — 
I don’t want to a bit, but, you think I ought to let Sandy 
go, don’t you ?” 

Gavin looked down at her in the dim starlight for a 
moment before he found courage to reply. “You know 
so much better than I do,” he said at last. “And I am 
not the one to advise you, because, — because, ” 

“Because what?” she asked wonderingly. 

“Because I can’t bear to think of you going away,” 
burst out Gavin with desperate boldness. 

Christina felt her cheeks grow hot under the sheltering 
darkness. She was speechless in her turn, and then 
afraid of what might follow this sudden outburst, she 
said confusedly, “I must go in now and think about it,” 
and with a hurried good-night, she was gone. 

She ran noiselessly up the lane, avoiding the lovers at 
the garden gate, and entered the back gate that opened 
from the barn-yard. She found Bruce and Ellen with 
John and her mother in the kitchen eating scones and 
drinking buttermilk. No one remarked her entrance ex- 
cept that her mother, looking over her shoulder asked, 
“Where’s your brother, Christine?” 

“He’s gone off with some one else’s sister,” answered 
Christina trying to speak carelessly. 

“Sometimes sisters go off with some one else’s 
brother,” remarked John, his eyes twinkling. “No, I don’t 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


74 

believe he is a brother to any one, is he?” Christina 
gave him an imploring look, that begged him to keep her 
secret, and he generously changed the subject. They 
were all full of Bruce’s new prospects, and Christina 
slipped away unnoticed to bed. 

But for the first time in her healthy young life worry 
drove sleep far from her. She heard Sandy come in, 
heard Jimmie enter the next room and his boots drop 
heavily on the floor, and when Ellen and Mary came up 
she pretended to be asleep. She occupied a small room 
opening off the one shared by her sisters, and could hear 
their whispers and hushed laughter. Ellen was so proud 
of Bruce and all he was going to be, and Mary was justly 
proud of her lover, and Christina had nobody to see her 
home but Gavin Grant, and no hope of anything better 
was before her. For how could she go to school and 
leave Sandy behind ? 

How could she ? She was facing the question at last. 
And her heart answered that no matter what wise folks 
might say about grasping Opportunity, she simply could 
not let it stand in Sandy’s way. There was only 
one answer to her question. 

She lay very still till she knew that her sisters were 
asleep. Then she rose and softly closed the door be- 
tween their rooms. She lit her lamp, feeling quite like 
a thief, and took out her box of writing paper. The 
pen and ink were downstairs, but she had a lead pencil, 
and Allister would not mind. 

She took the little stubby pencil and poured out her 
heart on to the paper. She just could not go, that was 
all about it. And would he send Sandy instead ? Sandy 
might be a minister some day like Neil, Mr. Sinclair 
said, and she would never, never be happy again if she 
thought she had made him stay home and be a farmer, 
or perhaps just a school-teacher because she had taken 


“WHOSOEVER WILL LOSE HIS LIFE” 75 

his chance away from him. And would he mind if she 
stayed home? Perhaps she could go some other time. 
Or she could teach for a while and put herself through. 
Sandy was nearly two years older than she was and he 
would soon be thinking he was too old to go to college. 
Of course Sandy did not know she was doing this. He 
would not let her, she knew, so she had told no one. 
She was up late at night when every one else was asleep, 
and she could not rest until she told him what she 
wanted. And she was going to get up early and give 
the letter to Mrs. Johnnie Dunn to post in Algonquin 
so it would get to him sooner. And oh, would he 
please, please, write right away, the very day he got it, 
and tell Sandy he could go in her place. For she could 
never, never be happy ” 

The letter went on and on reiterating incoherently all 
she feared and suffered. It was very late indeed 
when she crept to bed. She thought the right thing 
for a girl to do who had lost all her chances in life 
was to lie down and cry all night. But she was surprised 
to find that she felt strangely light hearted. All the 
dreadful weight of the past week had been removed. 
She could not think about her own loss, so joyous was 
she over the thought that Sandy was going after all. 

So she slept soundly, and dreamed that she was going 
to college and that Gavin Grant was a professor there 
and was teaching her wonderful truths. 


CHAPTER IV 


Craig-Ellachie 

I N spite of the high rapture of her sacrifice Christina 
found life distinctly dull when Sandy and Neil went 
off to Toronto leaving her behind. She felt as if she had 
been away on a long romantic journey since Allister’s 
return ; a journey that gave glimpses of wonderful coun- 
tries still to be travelled, and then she had suddenly been 
dropped back into Orchard Glen and forbidden to travel 
any more. 

And here she was milking and churning and feeding 
the hens and companying with Uncle in the barn yard. 
Of course Uncle Neil was the excellent company he 
had always been, full of song and story, and Christina 
could not find an opportunity to mourn over her lot even 
if she had been so minded. She was not the sort to 
wear a martyr’s robe. She would play the part, but 
she refused to make up for it. So she went about 
her daily tasks, singing as blithely as that Spring morn- 
ing when Allister opened the gate into a larger life for 
her, the gate which she had voluntarily shut, with her- 
self inside. She bore her disappointment jauntily, walk- 
ing erect as Eastern girls carry their burdens on their 
heads, growing straight and graceful in the effort. 

And then she was too busy to fret. There was 
Grandpa who needed more help every morning with his 
dressing, and every evening with the Hindmost Hymn. 
There was her mother, whose tasks must now grow 
76 


CRAIG-ELLACHIF. 


77 

lighter each year, there was Jimmie to be helped with 
his lessons on Saturdays, there was a Sunday school 
class with two of the bad Martin children in it, and 
there was Mary's trousseau to help prepare against the 
wedding at Christmastime. For the courtship of Mac- 
Gillivray’s man had proceeded at a furious pace and 
through Ellen had been engaged for five years, Mary 
was to be the first to marry. And so, Christina’s hands 
were very full, and John would often say to her, after 
an unusually busy day, or when a letter came from 
Sandy bewailing her lot: 

“Just wait, Christine. In another year who knows 
what will happen?” And Christina’s heart was content. 

As Mary had to keep up her teaching until the 
Christmas holidays, and her evenings were mostly spent 
with the young man who drove over from Port Stewart 
quite a remarkable number of times a week, there was 
much to do in the preparation of her clothes. Ellen 
had stopped her own embroidering, to wait until Bruce 
was through college, and she took to doing towels and 
table-napkins and doilies for Mary. 

“I can’t help thinking that it’s a dreadful waste for 
you to get married,” declared Christina, one Saturday 
afternoon as they all sewed furiously in the big roomy 
kitchen. “You’re just throwing away a teacher’s cer- 
tificate. My! If I had Greenwood school I’d never 
get married !” And Mary and Ellen laughed and looked 
at each other knowingly from their respective heights 
far above Christina’s head. 

She tried to keep up her studies by following Jim- 
mie’s course, and stayed home on Friday nights from 
the Temperance meeting to help him with his lessons. 

One evening they had a long hunt through “The Lady 
of the Lake” for a line about the Harebell which Jim- 
mie must quote in an essay. They were sitting 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


78 

around the long kitchen table, all except Mary who was 
out driving in the moonlight. Ellen was at one end 
writing to Bruce as usual, John at the other, reading 
the daily paper, Mrs. Lindsay was knitting, and Uncle 
Neil was strumming out fragments of old songs on his 
violin, his stockinged feet comfortable on the damper of 
the stove. 

Even Uncle Neil’s memory could not produce the 
Harebell, and Jimmie went rummaging through the book 
impatiently. 

“Gavin Grant would tell me if he was here,” Jimmie 
said. “He knows all this stuff off by heart.” 

“And plenty more,” put in Uncle Neil to the tune 
of “Oh wert thou in the cauld blast ?” “Gavin’s mind is 
well stored. Mr. Sinclair says he reads Carlyle in the 
evenings with the Grant girls. I wonder if you could 
match that anywhere in this country ?” 

Christina felt self-accusing, remembering her superior 
feeling in Gavin’s awkward presence. He had been very 
busy with the harvest and she had not seen him except 
at church for a long time. He had never attempted to 
walk home with her again, and she could not help won- 
dering whether it was because he was shy, or because 
he did not care. Womanlike she would have given a 
good deal to know. 

“I wish you would run over to Craig-Ellachie with 
that jar of black currants I promised the Grant Girls, 
Christina,” said her mother. 

“That’s the seventeenth time you’ve been reminded of 
that,” said Jimmie chidingly. 

“I think John’ll have to hitch up the team and take 
that jar over in the hay wagon,” said Uncle Neil, 
“Christine doesn’t seem to be able to manage it.” 

“She’s shy about going to see Gavin,” said John, 
looking at her with twinkling eyes over his paper. For 


CRAIG-ELLACHIE 


79 

John alone knew her guilty secret. She hastily promised 
to take the jar the very next day, and managed to get 
the conversation back to the Harebell, which in time 
showed its shy self and was set down in the essay. 

It was nearly a week before Christina managed to get 
away on her difficult errand. She did not want to go, 
certainly, but she was afraid of attracting more com- 
ment from John and Uncle Neil by staying. 

It was a golden September day when she went up over 
the hills with a basket of apples from their best tree, 
and the special jar of her mother’s black currant jelly. 
The air was motionless, the sky a perfect soft unclouded 
blue, the hills were amber, the hollows amethyst. The 
branches of the orchard trees behind the village houses 
sagged, heavy with their harvest, and gay as orchards 
gotten up for a garden party, all hung with fairy lantern 
globes of yellow and red. The gardens were filled with 
ripened corn and great golden pumpkins. The wild 
asters along the fences glowed softly purple. 

Christina stepped over the warm yellow stubble sing- 
ing, and climbed the hill to the old berry patch, where 
the briars grew more riotously every year. Gavin’s cows 
were straying through the green and yellow tangle on 
his side of the fence and a bell rang musically through 
the still aisles. The Wizard of Autumn had been up 
here on the hills with his paints and had touched 
the sumachs along the fences till they looked like trees 
of flame. And he had been working on a bit of wood- 
bine that now draped the old rail fence as with a scarlet 
curtain. A blue jay flashed through the golden silence 
waking the echoes with his noisy laughter and the flickers 
high up in the dead stumps called jeeringly to each 
other. 

Christina came out of the Slash into the yellow sun- 
shine of Gavin’s fields, and as she did so, she suddenly 


8o 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


dropped down behind the raspberry bushes that fringed 
the fence, quite in a panic. For a loud musical voice 
arose from the field just beyond the brow of the hill, 
Gavin was ploughing the back meadow and singing, and 
the song made Christina’s heart heat hotly : 

“Will ye gang to the Hielan’s, Leezie Lindsay? 

Will ye gang to the Hielan’s wi me?” 

Hidden by the hill, and the screening bushes, she 
slipped away and took a devious course down the valley. 
But there was a lump in her throat as she went. 

She ran past a clump of cedars and came out into 
view of Craig-Ellachie. The Grant Girls had given their 
home this name because of its association with their 
clan’s history, but Nature had encouraged them, for be- 
hind the house, set back against the dark pine woods, 
rose a hill crowned by a towering rock. The cosy old 
white-washed house was set in the centre of a saucer-like 
valley. It was the original log house in which their 
parents had lived and had been added to here and there 
till it was beautifully picturesque just as the home of 
the Grant Girls should be. 

But visitors to Craig-Ellachie never saw anything else 
after their first glimpse of the garden. 

Every one wondered how it was that the Grant Girls* 
garden should outbloom all others, and that nobody else 
ever had any hope of first prize at the Fall fairs. One 
said it was the sheltered location of the place, others 
the low elevation, still others that it was the southern 
slope that made the Craig-Ellachie garden unfold the 
earliest crocus in Spring and hold safely the lastest 
aster in Autumn. But wise folk, like Christina’s mother, 
always held that it was the tender care of the three 
gardeners and the sunlight of their presence that made 
their flowers the wonder of the countryside. 


CRAIG-ELLACHIE 81 

Christina drew a breath of delight as it came into 
view. Dahlias and asters, rows and rows of them, clumps 
of feathery cosmos, hedges of flaming gladioli, dazzling 
golden glow and a dozen others she did not recognise 
made a glorious array. And the blooms were not con- 
fined to the garden proper that was spread out on the 
south side of the house. They overflowed into the' 
vegetable garden at the back, and spread around the 
lawn at the front. They strayed away along the fences 
and completely hedged the orchard. They even en- 
croached upon the barnyard ; the manure heap was 
screened from view by a wall of sunflowers and golden 
glow and a rainbow avenue of late phlox led down to 
the pig-pens. 

Christina entered by the barnyard and came up 
through the kitchen garden where rows of cauliflower 
and cabbage and tomatoes alternated with pansies and 
mignonette and scarlet salvia. Every bed of onions was 
fringed with sweet alyssum, and rows of beets were 
flanked with rosemary and lavender. She opened the 
little wire gate that led into the garden proper and 
walked up under a long arched canopy of climbing roses 
and sweet peas that seemed, like the Grant Girls, to 
take no heed of the passing of time but bloomed on as 
though it were June. As she disappeared into its green 
shade her eye caught a movement in one of the brown 
fields behind the barn. The two younger sisters were 
there digging potatoes. 

There had been a day when the Grant Girls did all the 
work of field and farmyard, and their hands were hard 
and their backs bent. But since Gavin had grown to 
man’s estate their lives had been easier. Indeed they 
were never done telling tales of how Gavie had forbidden 
their going into the fields. They boasted of his high 
handed airs, for hadn’t he even chased Janet out of the 


82 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


barnyard, with the pitchfork, mind you, when she was 
determined to help him in with the hay. Eh indeed he 
was a thrawn lad, and nobody could manage oor Gavie ! 

And now that they had fallen upon easier days and 
Gavin's strong arms had taken up the heavier work, 
they had resumed many of the older tasks that long ago 
most farm women had gladly handed over to factory 
or mill. No cheese factory or creamery received a drop 
of milk or cream from Craig-Ellachie ; and the Grant 
Girls still spun their own wool from their own sheep, 
and knit it into good stout socks for themselves and 
Gavin, and cousin Hughie Reid, and his big family 
of boys. 

So this afternoon, Auntie Elspie, the eldest of the 
three, was sitting at the open kitchen door in the sun- 
shine spinning. The soft September breeze swayed her 
white apron and pink-dotted calico dress. Behind her 
the wide, low-ceiled old kitchen fairly glittered in its 
cleanliness. The high dresser with its blue plates, and 
the old chairs and table were varnished till they shone 
like mirrors. And the kitchen stove, used only in win- 
ter, for the wood-shed was the summer kitchen, blazed 
as it never had on a winter night, for on it stood a 
great blue pitcher filled with flaming gladioli. 

Around Auntie Elspie were arranged the household 
pets, all sleeping in the sunshine; Auntie Flora’s cat 
and two kittens, Auntie Janet’s spaniel, and Gavin’s fox 
terrier and two collies. The four dogs set up a loud 
clamour at the sight of the visitor, and went gambolling 
down the walk to meet her. At the sound the two 
workers in the field paused to look, and stood gazing 
until Christina disappeared indoors. 

Auntie Elspie dropped her thread and came hurrying 
down the steps, saying in mild reproach, “Hoots, toots, 
what a noise!” And then in glad welcome, “Eh, eh, 


CRAIG-ELLACHIE 


8 ^ 

and it’s little Christina! Eh, now, and wasn’t it jist 
grand o’ ye to come away over here — well — well — well — - 
well !” 

Mrs. Lindsay was the Grant Girls’ oldest and dearest 
friend, and a visit from any of her family was an occa- 
sion of great rejoicing. 

“Eh, well, well !” Auntie Elspie was patting Christina 
on the back, and taking off her hat in exuberant hospital- 
ity, mingling her words of welcome with admonitions to 
the riotous dogs which were bounding about making a 
joyous din. 

“Eh, well, now, and your poor mother, she would be 
well! Hut, tut, Wallace! Bruce! Yon’s no way to act. 
And wee Mary’ll be getting married — Princie! Did 
ye ever see the like o’ that? They’re jist that glad to 
see ye. Wallace ! Down, sir, down ! Jist wait till Gavie 
gits home, Bruce, then ye’ll mind! And Sandy’s away 
to the college too. Well, well, you Lindsays were all 
great for the books — come away in, hinny, come away, 
Down with ye, down!” 

They went into the house, the dogs still bounding 
joyously about, for they knew that a guest at Craig- 
Ellachie was a great and glad event and that they must 
express their joy in a fitting manner. 

Auntie Elspie was tall and thin and stooped. Her 
thin fair hair, almost white, was combed up in the 
fashion that had obtained when she was a girl. She 
wore a voluminous old dress of some ancient pattern 
of “print,” that had been quite fashionable some twenty 
years earlier, but she was also clothed in the gay gar- 
ment of youth which the Grant Girls always wore. 

She managed to eject the joyous, scrambling quartette 
from the kitchen and led the visitor through the dusk 
of the parlour where Auntie Flora’s organ stood with 
Gavin’s fiddle on top of it, on into the gloom of the 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


84 

spare room, heaping welcomes upon her all the way, 
and asking after everything on the Lindsay farm from 
Grandpa’s rheumatism to Christina’s black kitten. 

When Christina’s hat was laid upon the high white 
crest of the billowing feather bed, and her hair smoothed 
before the little mirror on the dresser, Auntie Elspie led 
her away beyond the parlour into a close, hushed room, 
where the mother had lain an invalid for many years, 
and which was kept sacred to her memory. Here the 
Grant Girls hoarded all their mother’s treasures: the 
photographs in oval frames on the wall, the high old 
dresser and the big sea chest filled with keepsakes, ten- 
derly associated with her life ; the Paisley shawl she wore 
to church, the sea shells she had brought from the old 
country, even the old china tea set that had been her one 
wedding gift. 

Christina was placed in an old rocker, while Auntie 
Elspie displayed all the treasures as a girl shows her 
jewels to a companion, and Christina knew she was 
being shown a great honour, for only special friends 
were ever taken into Mother’s Room. 

The last jewel to be exhibited was the mother’s photo- 
graph in an old leather case, velvet lined. 

“Folks say that after a person dies, the picture begins 
to fade,” Auntie Elspie said, wiping the shining surface 
tenderly. “But mother’s picture is as bright as the day 
it was taken.” 

Christina looked at the strong, kindly face, with the 
white cap and the little knitted shawl and felt her heart 
contract at the yearning in the older woman’s voice. 
Elspie was still a girl, longing for the touch of her 
mother’s hand, though that mother had been gone twenty- 
iive years. 

“Perhaps it’s because you keep her memory so bright, 


CRAIG-ELLACHIE 85 

that the picture never fades,” said Christina gently, 
and Auntie Elspie kissed her for sheer gratitude. 

When they came out into the sunshine of the kitchen 
again the other two sisters were there to add their wel- 
come. They had hurried in to see who their visitor 
was and were overwhelmed with joy to find it was Mary 
Lindsay’s girl. 

“I told you it was little Christina, Flora,” cried Auntie 
Janet triumphantly; “Flora said it was one o' the Mc- 
Kenzie girls!” And Flora admitted herself beaten. 

The two were in their farming costumes, old bits of 
past grandeur, a purple velvet skirt for Janet and a 
sacque of ancient brocaded silk on Flora, both accom- 
panied by Gavin’s cast off boots and wide straw hats. 
But the wearers received Christina in her trim blue 
skirt and white blouse, of the latest Algonquin style,, 
with a high bred unconsciousness of clothes. 

“Oh, I’m that glad you’ve come,” cried Janet, shak- 
ing her fifteen-year-old ringlets from her big hat,, 
“you’ve given us an excuse for a rest. We were jist 
doin’ a bit of gardenin'. Weren’t we, Flora?” she 
asked. 

Auntie Flora’s eyes twinkled, “Oh, yes, yes, jist gar- 
denin'!” she declared, and the three Aunties burst out 
laughing, and Auntie Janet spread out her earth soiled 
hands with a comical gesture. 

“We’ve been diggin’ the potaties!” she whispered, 
her eyes dancing. “But if Gavie caught us at it, we’d 
catch it! So we jist keep tellin’ him we’ve been gar- 
denin' an’ he never suspects, an’ he can’t see us from 
where he’s ploughin’!” 

“An’ we’ll be finished in another day if he doesn’t: 
find out!” cried Auntie Flora exultingly. 

“Aye, but jist wait, you’ll get yer pay for yer pranks 
when he does find out,” admonished Auntie Elspie, 


86 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


like an indulgent mother threatening her mischievous 
children with a father's punishment. “Gavie jist won't 
let us put foot into the fields !" she added proudly. But 
the two younger ones laughed recklessly. They would 
be up sides with Gavie yet, for all his high-handed, bossy 
ways ! 

They washed their hands, changed their shoes and 
put away their big hats, and all three bustled about 
getting tea. Christina would have preferred to slip 
away before Gavin came in, but she well knew that 
no human being had ever come to Craig-Ellachie and 
left again without sitting down to eat, and knew it 
was no use to protest. 

So she went out into the garden to help Flora gather a 
bouquet for the table, and her hostess broke off armfuls 
of every sort of flowers she admired, making a great 
sheaf to carry home to her mother. They put the glor- 
ious mass into a shining tin pail to await her depar- 
ture. Then Christina ran about the kitchen and pantry, 
helping set the best blue dishes on the table, and they 
all laughed and joked and had such a time, as though 
all four had just turned nineteen last May. 

“Did ye hear that Elspie has a fellow, Christina?” 
called Auntie Flora from the cellar whither she had gone 
to fetch the cream. 

“No,” cried Christina, overcome with laughter, “she 
didn’t tell me.” 

“She’s just a wee bit shy about it yet,” said Auntie 
Janet. “But when she gets over it, you’ll see them to- 
gether in church.” 

“It’s Piper Lauchie McDonald!” cried Auntie Flora, 
coming up to the surface again ; “he’s been cornin’ here 
pretendin’ he wanted to teach Gavie the pipes, but we 
can see it’s Elspie he’s got in his eye.” 

Auntie Elspie’s eyes were dancing. “They’re both that 


CRAIG-ELLACHIE 87 

jealous o’ me, there’s no livin’ with them,” she con- 
fided. 

They all joined Christina in a gale of laughter, none 
gayer than Elspie herself. 

Tea was all ready now, a perfect banquet set out with 
the blue dishes, on the best white and blue tablecloth, 
with a tremendous glory of asters and dahlias in a 
bronze jug in the middle of the table. 

When everything was ready, Auntie Janet ran to the 
foot of the front lawn and called a long clear “Hoo- 
hoo !” and from far away in the fields a faint halloo an- 
swered. 

“Gavie’s coming,” the three cried together joyously, 
and Auntie Elspie hurried out to the wood-shed to place 
the blue china teapot on the stove to warm. 

“He won’t be long, he always knows there’s company 
when the dogs bark and he’ll hurry in.” 

While they waited Auntie Flora took Christina into 
the parlour to show her a new song-book Gavin had 
brought home the Saturday previous. 

Christina’s fascinated gaze went around the wonderful 
framed wreaths on the wall, one made of cotton-batting 
flowers, another of coloured feathers and the most inter- 
esting one fashioned of flowers made from hair. Auntie 
Flora went over each blossom tenderly. This rose at 
the top was made of mother’s hair. Wasn’t her hair 
beautiful and soft and shining? Nobody in the family 
had hair like mother’s. And the one just beside it 
of darker grey, was father’s. Father’s hair was rich and 
beautiful too. The dark brown one was Janet’s and the 
fair one Elspie’s. 

“And ye can tell whose is the mouse-coloured one,” 
said Auntie Janet teasingly. 

“Aye,” said Auntie Flora. “They’re never done talkin’ 


■88 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


about my mouse-coloured hair; but they’ll soon have to 
stop because it’s gettin’ white !” she added gaily. 

And the next flower that beautiful brown, was made 
from Duncan’s, the only brother who died when he was 
in his first year in college. He was to have been a min- 
ister. Mother had saved his curls from the time he was 
just a wee laddie. Duncan had died twenty years ago 
but his sisters could not yet speak of him without tears. 

Then they brightened when Flora pointed out the next 
and the last — that shiny black bit, it couldn’t be any- 
body’s but Gavie’s ; hair as black as that. Did Christina 
mind what beautiful curly hair he had when they got him 
first? And such a time as they had getting him to let it 
grow long enough to get a piece for the wreath. It 
was just getting nice once, but the boys teased him about 
it at school, and what did he do but get the shears one 
night and cut it all off that close that he nearly cut the 
skin, and a sight the rascal was, with bare white patches 
all over his black head ! 

But Janet saved what was cut and they managed to 
make this little flower and put it in the wreath next to 
Duncan’s. Gavie was just such another boy as Duncan 
was, and the Lord had been good indeed to give him to 
them in their old age. 

Gavin did not appear quite so soon as expected. He 
came up slowly from the barn, and spent a very long time 
over the little wash-bench at the wood-shed door. At 
last he came in, fondling the dogs that kept circling about 
him, and shook hands with Christina very hurriedly, as 
though he had been in great haste all the time. 

They sat down to the table immediately, and for a while 
tthe rapture of having Christina sitting at his right hand 
almost overcame him and he had very little to say. But 
he shared the Aunties’ spirit of hospitality, Christina 
was his guest and he soon found courage to wait on her 


CRAIG-ELLACHIE 


89 

and see she was well served. Auntie Elspie, sitting op- 
posite him with the tea-pot and the cups and saucers, 
understood, and did all she could to make things easy 
for him. Though the three Aunties loved Gavin with 
equal devotion, Auntie Elspie had been more of a mother 
to him. She read her boy and had long ago guessed at 
his devotion to Christina. She was sure of it now and 
was very happy. With the optimism of youth she saw 
nothing but success ahead for Gavin and was overjoyed 
that he had chosen so wisely and well — one of Mary Lind- 
say’s girls. What better could happen ? 

As for Christina, she was feeling strangely at home 
and yet in entirely new surroundings. Gavin Grant at the 
head of his own table dispensing hospitality to his guest 
was a different person from the shy boy she knew. Here 
he was a man with an air of authority, strong and yet 
kind and gentle. 

He soon forgot his embarrassment in the joy of her 
presence. They grew very merry over Auntie Elspie’s 
beau again, Gavin taking great credit to himself for 
having arranged the match. 

“She’ll be goin’ off with him one o’ these days,” prophe- 
sied Auntie Janet, “and indeed, we’ll all leave ye, if you 
don’t mind and let us work out in the field when we 
like,” she threatened. 

“Indeed you ought to let the girls help you with that 
field of potatoes, Gavie,” said Auntie Elspie. “He won’t 
let one of us do a hand’s turn beyond the house, Chris- 
tina,” she complained, turning to her guest. “Did ye ever 
hear the like ?” 

A telegraphic message flashed across the table between 
Auntie Flora and Auntie Janet which Gavin did not 
see. 

“We jist have no life with him at all/’ said Auntie 
Flora, “he’s that thrawn.” 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


‘90 

“I think I’ll jist have to take him in hand, myself,” 
said the lively Auntie Janet. 

“I can manage them all but Auntie Janet,” Gavin 
said brazenly. “I didn’t start early enough with her. 
I brought up the other two better. But I’ll get her 
broken in, in time.” 

The three Aunties went off into loud gay laughter that 
echoed far out over the bright garden. They declared 
he was quite beyond them, and how did Christina suppose 
they ever put up with such a rascal? 

They lingered long at the table and after the gay 
supper was over Christina was loath to go; she was 
having such a good time. So she did not need much 
coaxing to prevail upon her to stay till the cows were 
milked. They could surely do without her for once. 
It was Friday night and Jimmie would help Uncle Neil 
and the girls, she admitted. So ,she ran out to the barn 
with a pail, though Gavin was determined she should not 
milk, and she helped with the separator, doing everything 
with her usual swiftness, and the Aunties looked on in 
amazement and admiration. 

The short Autumn evening had descended in a soft 
purple haze and a great round golden moon was riding 
up over Craig-Ellachie when Christina put on her hat 
and declared reluctantly that she must leave. She was 
ladened with gifts : a jar of tomato relish, a huge cake 
of maple sugar, a bottle of a new kind of liniment for 
Grandpa, and such an armful of dahlias and phlox and 
asters and gladioli as Christina had never seen in her 
life. 

The Aunties and Gavin all came with her as far as the 
pasture bars where the tall ghosts of the corn stood 
whispering in the twilight. The two younger sisters were 
for going all the way with her over the hills, but Auntie 
Elspie, with her deeper insight, interfered. 


CRAIG-ELLACHIE 


9i 

“Gavie’ll go and carry the flowers for you, Christina,” 
she said. “We’ll have to be gettin’ away back, girls.” 
And the girls, being young themselves, understood, and 
bade Christina good-night, with many admonitions to 
come back again and warnings to Gavie to take good 
care of her. Gavin put the bottle of liniment in one 
pocket and the catsup in another, the relish and the maple 
sugar in a third and bundling the bouquet under his arm 
in a fashion that made Auntie Flora scream with dis- 
may, walked by Christina’s side across the dim pasture 
field, with the golden and purple sunset ahead of them 
and the silver moonlight behind coming down over Craig- 
Ellachie. The night was warm and still and the endless 
song of the grass, the swan song of all that was left of 
Summer, filled the air. 

Christina felt perfectly happy and care-free. A career 
seemed a far-off, nebulous thing that one need not fret 
over. It was very pleasant to be walking up over the 
hills in the moonlight and sunset with Gavin at her side 
carrying flowers for her. She felt it would be beautiful 
to be able to always stroll around this way with the 
scent of rosemary heavy in the air, and never to bother 
to look forward to a college course. They chatted away 
happily and she told him about their search for the Hare- 
bell, telling him that Uncle Neil said he would know, and 
he quoted long stanzas from “The Lady of the Lake,” and 
“Marmion.” And they discussed the new song-book he 
had bought and quarrelled over their favourite Scotch 
song. And he did not confess that his was the one she 
had heard him singing that afternoon as be ploughed the 
back field. 

They crossed the end of the Slash, where Gavin had 
to help her through the tangle of bushes. And did she 
remember how she had given him her berries that day, 
he asked. 


92 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


Christina laughed, but Gavin was sober. “It was a 
beautiful thing to do, ,, he said, “and now you have done 
it again for Sandy.” 

“No, no,” said Christina, “it was nothing; I could not 
be happy to go and let Sandy stay.” 

“But you will go some day?” added Gavin, his voice 
sunk to a tremulous whisper. 

“Yes, perhaps next Fall, Allister and John both say, 
if the crops turn out well next summer. But it’s a long 
way to look ahead.” 

They had come down to the level again, along the 
back lane and up to the little gate that led in from the 
barnyard. 

Gavin put the flowers into her arms and handed her 
the many gifts. 

“Won’t you come in, Gavin ?” she asked. “There might 
be a letter from Sandy.” , 

“Thank you,” he said gratefully. “No, I must not be 
going in to-night, Christine. Thank you for your visit. 
You made my Aunties very happy. And you have made 
me very happy, too,” he added in a whisper. He saw the 
look of embarrassment on her face and instantly stopped. 
Gavin was a true gentleman at heart and guessed when 
he was bordering on forbidden ground. He walked away 
and Christina went slowly up the path. 

Perhaps, after all, there was something in the saying 
that homekeeping hearts are happiest, she reflected. It 
did not seem quite so dreary to look forward to always 
living in Orchard Glen. 


CHAPTER V 


“Hey! Johnnie Cope” 

A FTER that visit to Craig-Ellachie Gavin was a 
new person to Christina. She was humiliated to 
remember that she had ever presumed to make fun of 
him. He was good and kind and chivalrous, and Sandy 
was right when he declared that Gavin knew far more 
than half the fellows around the village who thought 
themselves so much smarter. Christina thought about 
him often these soft slumbrous Autumn days and said 
to herself that, should he ever ask to walk home with her 
again, she would surely be much kinder than she had 
been. And she could not help wondering just a little 
why he did not try. 

Indeed, had Gavin only known, he was very near 
gaining his heart’s desire, when an unfortunate event 
snatched away his chance and tore him down from the 
heights to which he had unconsciously risen. 

All the previous Winter and Summer the Temperance 
Society, which was the Presbyterian Choir, which was 
the Methodist Choir, had been practising strenuously for 
a concert. This weekly choir practice was really a com- 
munity singing. Young and old, Presbyterians, Baptists 
and Methodists went to it, and Tremendous K. led them. 
There was an inner circle that sang on Sundays, in the 
Presbyterian Church in the morning and the Methodist 
Church in the evening. And they sang in the Baptist 
Church, too, on each alternate Sunday afternoon. For 
93 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


94 

the Baptist minister lived in Avondell, and gave Orchard 
Glen only two services a month. 

So this Union Choir decided to give a grand concert 
under the auspices of the Temperance Society to raise 
money to buy new chairs for the hall, and perhaps a 
new table if there was money enough. As the date of 
the concert approached the practices were twice a week, 
and every Tuesday and Thursday, from eight o’clock till 
half-past nine, Tremendous K.’s big voice might be heard 
booming : 

“Watch your time, there! Sing up, can’t you? Give 
her a lift ! Don’t pull as if you was haulin’ a stun boat 
up the hill !” 

It was just such drilling that had made the Orchard 
Glen choir famous over the whole countryside, and 
caused them to be in demand for tea meetings all through 
the Winter. 

But the drilling was becoming wearisome, for the choir 
had been practising for a very long time indeed. The 
date of the concert had been set again and again, and 
on every occasion some other affair interfered. 

After many vicissitudes the date had been finally settled 
for the evening of the first of October, and no sooner was 
it set, and set for the twentieth time, too, than the Meth- 
odist minister announced a week of special meetings at his 
church as there was an Evangelist available at that date ! 

This was a serious affair and the Methodists in the 
choir were for having another postponement. 

“When’s the concert to be?” asked Willie Brown one 
evening, as they took a rest, and a paper bag of candy 
was passed round from Marmaduke. 

“Haven’t you been told straight ahead for a month 
that it’s the first of October !” cried Tremendous K. in his 
most tremendous voice, “and it’s not goin’ to be a minute 
later, neither!” 


“HEY! JOHNNIE COPE” 95 

“That’s the first night of the special meetings in our 
church,” put in Minnie Brown, sharply, “and father 
wouldn’t think of letting us come.” 

Tremendous K. scowled. “Looky here,” he declared, 
“we’ve been putting off this here concert for some dog 
fight or another for about two years, and I don’t care if 
King George the Third was goin’ to have special meetin’s 
right in the hall that night, we’re goin’ to have that con- 
cert!” 

Tremendous K. was exceedingly loyal to both King and 
country, but he could never remember which George it 
was that occupied the throne, and had no notion of sug- 
gesting that one should rise from the dead. 

“You don’t call special services in a church a dog 
fight, I hope,” put in Tilly Holmes’s father, his eyebrows 
bristling. Mr. Holmes was a Baptist and had no inten- 
tion of attending the Methodist meetings, but he felt he 
ought to stand for the principle of the thing, especially 
as Tremendous K. was a Presbyterian. 

“I never said nothing of the sort!” denied the choir 
leader hotly, being himself a bit troubled in his con- 
science. “But what I do say is that we’ve put off this 
thing so that it can’t be put off no longer if it’s to be 
sung before the crack o’ doom! The concert’s on the 
first of October, or not at all. Here! all turn to page 
thirty-four, the opening chorus, *AH’s Well/ Everybody, 
whoop her up, now !” 

That was the beginning of the trouble ; the next even- 
ing the Browns and several other good Methodists were 
not at practice and neither were the Holmeses. Mr. 
Wylie, the Methodist minister, went to Mr. Sinclair 
about it and Mr. Sinclair said it was no more a Presby- 
terian affair than a Methodist. And the Baptist minister 
stood aloof and said he always knew these union affairs 
would never bring anything but trouble. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


96 

The thinned ranks of the choir closed up, though the 
loss of the Browns, who were all musical, was a stagger- 
ing blow. Tilly Holmes cried so hard that her father 
had to let her come back, and two or three of the less 
faithful Methodists returned, pending the final decision 
in regard to the date. And Tremendous K. went on, stub- 
bornly waving his baton in the face of the whole Meth- 
odist congregation. 

No serious trouble might have arisen, however, had 
not the two who were always a source of dissension in 
the village, put their wicked heads together. To be quite 
fair, for once in their lives, Trooper Tom and Marma- 
duke were without guile when they decided to invite 
old Piper Lauchie McDonald from Glenoro to come and 
play at the concert. They were merely actuated by the 
pure motive of making the entertainment more attractive 
than the Methodist gathering, with, perhaps, the sub- 
conscious thought that it was a question if Old Tory 
Brown, who was Scotch, even if he were a Methodist, 
could resist leaving a mere preaching to hear a real 
Piper. The two were willing to bet almost anything on 
the superior attractions of the music, Duke offering to 
put up his wooden leg against Trooper’s Mounted Police 
Medal. 

Tremendous K. was not very enthusiastic when, with 
great diplomacy, Marmaduke suggested the bagpipes as 
an addition to the programme. The Hendersons were 
very rigid concerning certain worldly amusements, and 
a Piper was always associated with dancing and kindred 
foolishness. When it was made clear that Lauchie would 
draw a crowd, which a Piper always did, he yielded, and 
Marmaduke and Trooper borrowed The Woman’s car, 
and whirled away up over the hills to Glenoro one even- 
ing and invited Lauchie to play in Orchard Glen on the 
night of the big concert. 


HEY ! JOHNNIE COPE 5 


Christina had been faithfully attending all the prac- 
tices. She was not a real choir member, but Tremendous 
K. said he couldn’t get up a concert without at least one 
Lindsay in it, and she was the only one available. For 
John could not sing, Mary had lost interest in everything 
outside Port Stewart, and Ellen was too busy with the 
trousseau to attend to anything else. 

On the evening of the last rehearsal, as Christina 
went down the hill with a crowd of her girl friends, Tilly 
met them in great excitement. 

“Wallace Sutherland’s come home, ,, she announced, 
breathlessly. “The Doctor met him in town with his car, 
and he’s going to stay a week before he goes back to 

college. Mrs. Sutherland told Mrs. Sinclair and she told 
>> 

ma. 

This was surely interesting news. Wallace Sutherland 
had not been in Orchard Glen for any length of time, 
since he was a little boy and went to the public school. 
He was attending a University over in the great United 
States, and spent his holidays with the wealthy uncle 
who was paying his college bills. Mrs. Sutherland often 
went to Boston to visit him and her rich brother, but 
Wallace had spent very little time in the old home. Folks 
said that his mother was afraid of his becoming familiar 
with the country folk and so kept him out of the way. 

Christina laughed at Tilly and her news. The store- 
keeper’s daughter was always in a high state of excite- 
ment over some wonderful happening in Orchard Glen, 
while Christina was prepared to testify that nothing at 
all ever happened within the ring of its sleepy green 
hills, and she immediately forgot all about Mr. Wallace 
Sutherland. 

The next evening was the date of the concert, and 
excitement ran high. When Trooper and Marmaduke 
had visited the Piper they had made elaborate arrange- 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


98 

ments for his entry into Orchard Glen. He was to stay 
with old Peter McNabb, a relative who lived about half- 
a-mile above the village, until the hour for the concert 
had almost arrived, then he was to come sweeping down 
the hill, when the crowds were gathering, and march 
playing into the hall where he would open the proceed- 
ings. And if he did not sweep all the folks around the 
Methodist church back into the hall with him, then 
Trooper had missed his guess. Piper Lauchie was a 
true Highlander, with a love of the dramatic, and he 
fell in with the arrangements with all his heart. The 
Dunn farm was just next to Old Peter’s house, so early 
in the afternoon Trooper went over and ascertained to 
his satisfaction that Lauchie was there, with his pipes in 
fine tune. The two old men were smoking and telling 
tales of pioneer days on the shores of Lake Simcoe, with 
as much zest as if they were relating them for the first 
time instead of the forty-first. So, with everything so 
well arranged, there was seemingly no cause for anxiety, 
and not the most pessimistic Methodist could have 
prophesied disaster. 

The evening of October first was bright and warm, and 
at an early hour the rival crowds began to gather; the 
worshippers and the revellers, Mr. Wylie designated them 
in a remark made afterwards to Mr. Sinclair, a remark 
the Presbyterian minister did not forget in a few weeks. 
The Methodist church, which was up on the slope of 
the hill, began to fill slowly and the Temperance hall, 
down near the store comer, rapidly. A group of young 
men lingered at the door of the hall with their usual in- 
ability to enter a meeting until a few minutes after the 
hour of starting. There was also a small group at the 
door of the Methodist church farther up the hill. They 
were not the customary loungers, but a small self-ap- 
pointed committee of the Methodist fathers on the out- 


HEY! JOHNNIE COPE ! 


look for any of the flock who might stumble into the pit- 
fall of the Temperance hall on their way to church. 

The visiting minister drove into the village, passed the 
hall in a whirl of dust, and hurried into the church. 
Dusk was falling, the lamps were lit in both gathering 
places and the light shone from the windows. 

It was now on the eve of eight o’clock, in another 
moment the meeting on the hill would open, and the Piper 
had not yet appeared. Marmaduke and Trooper, con- 
sulting in the middle of the street where there was a 
view of the hill up as far as the Lindsay gate, were 
growing anxious. It would be quite too bad if, after all 
their plans, the Piper should fail them. Trooper was for 
going after the missing musician, but Duke counselled 
patience. He fancied he saw a figure on the hill now 
and any moment they might hear the pipes. 

But eight o’clock came, the group of watchers on the 
hill moved inside, and the strains of a hymn came 
through the open door and windows of the Methodist 
church. There was no hope of catching any stray 
sheep in the Piper’s net now ! 

Tremendous K. came rushing out of the hall declar- 
ing that they could not wait any longer, the boys were 
beginning to stamp and yell for the programme, and Dr. 
McGarry was as mad as a wet hen. Then Dr. McGarry, 
who was chairman, came right on his heels, his watch in 
his hand, demanding what in common sense and thunder 
they meant by holding up the meeting this way. That 
confounded piper of theirs could play for an hour after 
he got here if he wanted to, but were they going to sit 
up all night waiting for him ? He had been called to go 
and see old Granny Anderson just as soon as this show 
was over, and she wouldn’t be likely to put off dying 
until that Piper appeared as if he was Gabriel with his 
trump ! 


100 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


The Doctor was a hard man to argue with when he 
was angry, inasmuch as he did not stop talking at all, 
and so there was no chance to state your case. So it was 
decided that the Choir had better sing the opening chorus, 
while Trooper would go up the hill and hasten the 
Piper’s tune if possible, Duke remaining on guard at the 
door to see that he did not enter during the rendering of 
some other selection. 

So Tremendous K. and the Doctor dashed back into 
the hall and Trooper ran up the village street. But 
before he had come to the bridge across the stream, he 
discerned a figure appearing out of the dusk on the hill- 
side and the next moment, high, clear and thrilling 
sounded the opening skirl of the pipes! Trooper gave a 
whoop of joy, and ran back waving the good news which 
had already arrived on the evening breeze. Marmaduke 
sent one of the boys flying into the Hall to see if the 
programme would not wait another moment, but he was 
just a second too late. The opening chorus, “ All’s Well,” 
was started, and already they could hear Joanna’s voice 
on the high notes. 

“Never mind,” cried Marmaduke as Trooper ran up 
breathless, “he’ll come in as neat as a tack right after this 
piece, and we couldn’t a’ got any more into the Hall any- 
way,” he added gloatingly, “even if he’d been playin’ all 
day.” 

He was certainly playing now, and most enticingly. It 
was that teasing, alluring lilt, “Tullochgorum,” and 
Trooper went out into the middle of the road and danced 
the Highland Fling to it, while Marmaduke took his place 
opposite, hopping about in a cloud of dust, on his one 
foot and holding up his peg leg in a very elegant fashion 
as a dainty young lady might hold her train. 

“Say, he’ll bust the church windows when he’s passin’ !” 
cried Trooper, stopping to listen to the music soaring 


“HEY ! JOHNNIE COPE ! 


101 


louder and clearer. The night was warm, and the doors 
and windows of the church were all wide open and Piper 
Lauchie was making as much noise as a company of 
massed bands marching past. 

“It’s turned out better than we intended,” said Mar- 
maduke in improper glee. “Why didn’t we think of it?” 

Now, Piper Lauchie had not been in Orchard Glen that 
summer, and the last occasion upon which he had visited 
the village had been on his way home from a picnic, 
under rather merry circumstances which left his mem- 
ory of the place pleasantly hazy. Trooper had cautioned 
him to march right into the hall on his arrival, explaining 
that the building was on his left hand side after he 
crossed the bridge, and that he could not miss it for it 
would be all lit up and he and Marmaduke would be at 
the door to see him march triumphantly inside. So far 
he had followed his instructions to the letter. He tuned 
up half way down the hill and came marching across the 
bridge, and then the Dreadful Thing happened. 

It was almost dark by this time and surely neither the 
Piper nor Trooper nor Marmaduke was to blame that the 
Methodist church should be placed on the left hand side 
after you crossed the bridge, and that it should be all lit 
up so that the Piper could not miss it ! And he did not 
miss it, either. The sight of the rows of heads against 
the windows, all in the attitude of waiting, inspired the 
musician to greater effort. He shifted his chanter a bit, 
put more wind into it, and burst into a gayer and faster 
tune, and when he reached the bit of sidewalk opposite 
the door of the Methodist church, he whirled about, with 
a flirt of his kilt and a flip of his plaid, swept up the steps, 
through the open door and went screaming up the church 
aisle right to the pulpit steps, fairly raising the roof to the 
tune of “Hey! Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin’ yet?” 

And all the while this terrible mishap was occurring. 


102 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


the Choir in the hall farther down the street, just at the 
moment when all was going as ill as human affairs could 
go, was singing in false security, “AlPs Well!” 

When Trooper and Duke, waiting admiringly in the 
middle of the road, saw their charge suddenly disappear 
into the pitfall of the Methodist church, they stood 
paralysed for one dreadful moment, like men who had 
seen the earth open and swallow everything upon which 
they had set their hearts. Then Trooper gave a terrific 
yell, the war whoop he had learned on the prairie, and 
turned and looked at his companion in disaster. Duke 
was beyond uttering even a yell. He collapsed silently 
upon the grass by the roadside, and rolled back and forth 
in a kind of convulsion, while Trooper staggered to the 
fence and hung limply over it like a wet sack. And all the 
while inside the hall higher and stronger and more con- 
fident, swelled the words of the chorus in dreadful irony, 
"All's Well, AlPs Well !” 

Nobody could ever quite explain how the Piper got 
ej'ected from the church and transferred to the hall 
where he belonged. There were so many conflicting re- 
ports. 

Some said that Mr. Wylie gave him a solemn talking to 
upon the error of his position, and the visiting minister 
upon the error of his ways, being under the impression 
that he and old Peter had been drinking, which, strange 
to say, was really not the case. Others declared that the 
Piper did not stop playing long enough for any one to 
speak, but went roaring up one aisle to come screeching 
down the other. No one seemed quite clear on the sub- 
ject, for the Methodists were too angry to speak of the 
affair coherently and for a long time it was not safe to 
ask them about it. 

But upon one part of the history all eye-witnesses, 
except the Piper himself, were agreed, and that was that 


'HEY ! JOHNNIE COPE 5 


Mrs. Johnnie Dunn left her seat and chased the Piper 
down the church aisle with her umbrella. The Woman 
would have preferred to attend the concert, though she 
was a Methodist, but Trooper’s lively interest in it had 
decided her to adhere to her church, and she was not 
slow to take this opportunity of showing her disapproval 
of his choice. 

Whatever happened, Piper Lauchie did finally reach 
the hall, but he was too angry to either play or speak. 
There was no sign of the committee that was to meet 
him, for Trooper and Marmaduke had fled down the 
dark alley between the hall and the blacksmith shop and 
were lying in an old shed, trying to keep from shouting. 

Gavin Grant had arrived late, after a very busy day, 
and with a little group of boys had also witnessed the 
catastrophe. Gavin stepped up to the old man to apolo- 
gise and explain, but Lauchie shoved him aside and 
marched noisily into the hall, ready to murder any one 
who stood in his way. 

He burst in just as Dr. McGarry arose and announced: 

“Ladies and gentlemen, the next item on this pro- 
gramme is ” 

And Piper Lauchie shouted from the back of the build- 
ing in a high thin yell : 

“The next item will be that some one will be hafing his 
brains knocked out, whatefer!” 

And he tramped straight up the aisle to the platform, 
his old plaid streaming from his shoulders, his pipes held 
like a drawn claymore. 

The Chairman, like the rest of the crowd, had been 
listening to “All’s Well” and did not dream that things 
had been going otherwise. He stood for a moment star- 
ing at the enraged Piper and then Gavin, who had just 
slipped into his seat in the choir, leaned forward, and 
touching the Chairman’s elbow, strove to explain. 


104 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

“Mr. McDonald went to the wrong meeting/’ he whis- 
pered, but he got no farther. 

Old Lauchie slammed his pipes down on the Chair- 
man’s table, upsetting a glass of water and a big bouquet 
of flowers from Craig-Ellachie, and turned upon Gavin, 
his fists clenched. 

“I would be going to the wrong meeting, would I?” 
he shouted, and Gavin backed away hastily. The old man 
pursued him hotly. 

“It would be you and your fell tribe that would be 
sending me to the Messodis meeting house !” he shouted. 
“Ta Messodis,” he repeated in withering scorn, “I’ll Mes- 
sodis you ” 

Gavin was continuing to back away in a most ungal- 
lant fashion, till he got to the wall and there was no 
means of escape, when rescue came from an unexpected 
quarter. 

Just at the end of the front row of seats, where the 
pursuit came to a halt, Wallace Sutherland was sitting 
with his mother. He had been the centre of many admir- 
ing glances, especially from the girls. And indeed he was 
a fine-looking young fellow and it was no wonder that 
his uncle was so proud of him and his mother so afraid. 
He was hugely enjoying the Piper’s tumultuous entry, 
and his black eyes were dancing with delight, when the 
old man, his red blazing eyes fixed upon his supposed 
enemy, was backing Gavin into a corner. 

But Mrs. Sutherland, for all that Orchard Glen pro- 
nounced her proud and cold, was a timid, gentle woman, 
and Lauchie’s appearance filled her with panic. 

“Oh, Wallace, my dear,” she whispered in alarm. “Oh, 
how dreadful. He’s going to strike him ” 

Wallace was very loath to put an end to the fun, but 
he rose and touched the enraged Piper on the arm. 

“Mr. McDonald,” he whispered tactfully, “my uncle. 


“HEY ! JOHNNIE COPE” 105 

Dr. McGarry, is the Chairman and he, — he’s just a little 
bit nervous. Won’t you get your pipes and play for us? 
He doesn’t know what to do next, and we’ve been waiting 
anxiously to hear you.” 

Wallace Sutherland’s charming manner seldom failed 
him and it did not now. The Piper looked at him 
and the fierce rage died from his eyes. The clenched 
fists dropped to his side and Gavin slipped into a seat. 
Wallace nodded to his uncle and Dr. McGarry hastily 
announced, without any embarrassing explanations, that 
the Piper had been unavoidably delayed but that he was 
now ready to favour them with a selection for which they 
were all so anxiously waiting. 

So Lauchie shouldered his instrument and took his 
place on the platform. The storm was abating but there 
were still thunderings and occasional flashes of lightning 
concerning the crass ignorance and stupidity of the peo- 
ple of Orchard Glen and Methodists the world over. 

“Come up to Glenoro and we’ll be learning you man- 
ners,” came rumbling out of the thunder cloud. “We’ll 
be showing you how they treat a Piper there.” 

But by this time the pipes were beginning to scream 
their opening note, and Lauchie was blowing his anger 
into the chanter. The tune rose on a shrill spiral and high 
and clear it poured forth the challenging notes of a fierce 
pibroch, the war song of the Clan McDonald. The player 
marched back and forth across the platform keeping 
quick step to the mad tune, that rose louder and faster 
and shriller at each step. 

The audience began to clap, to stamp, to cheer, and 
still the war cry of the McDonalds went screaming to the 
roof ; and finally when the walls were beginning to rock, 
and the women were becoming terrified, the Piper whirled 
down the aisle and swept out of the building on the high 
tide of his song. The young men in the back of the hall 


lo6 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


followed him in noisy hilarity, but he stopped for no- 
body. He went marching straight up the village street 
towards home, the defiant notes rising in a wild cres- 
cendo. And oh, how he blew with lungs of leather like 
fifty pipers together, when he was passing the Methodist 
church ! 

Dr. McGarry called the audience to order with some 
difficulty, and the rest of the performance went on quite 
decorously. And when the last notes of the pipes died 
away in the hills, Marmaduke and Trooper crawled from 
their hiding place and sat on the hall steps till the pro- 
gramme was over, holding each other up. 

“Gosh,” whispered Marmaduke, wiping his eyes 
weakly. “Who’d ’a’ thought that a McDonald from 
Glenoro wouldn’t know a Methodist church when he saw 
one?” 

“It was the sight o’ the Temperance hall that turned 
his stomach>” lamented Trooper. “We might ’a’ known 
he’d shy at it,” 

The Piper played himself away up and out of Orchard 
Glen, vowing solemnly, like the Minstrel Boy, that he 
would tear the cords of his instrument asunder ere they 
should sound again within the hearing of that traitorous 
community, a vow that old Lauchie was to live to see 
broken, under very stiring circumstances. 

But there were other cords torn asunder in Orchard 
Glen by the unfortunate contingency of that fatal even- 
ing. The Hendersons and the Browns, who had been 
lifelong friends, stopped speaking to each other ; Mr. Sin- 
clair and Mr. Wylie met on the most frigidly polite 
terms; the union choir, which was the pride of Tremen- 
dous K.’s heart and the glory of Orchard Glen, fell to 
pieces, and a line of demarkation was drawn carefully 
between the two denominations where so recently every 
one had talked about church union. 


HEY ! JOHNNIE COPE’ 


107 


Mrs. Johnnie Dunn did not allow whatever part her 
nephew and his chum had in the affair to go unnoticed. 
She advertised it, and hinted that perhaps the Piper 
was not so much to blame after all. Indeed the past 
record of Trooper and Marmaduke afforded little weight 
in proving their innocence, and public suspicion fastened 
upon them. Neither of them took any pains to establish 
their innocence; indeed, Trooper secretly wondered why 
they had never thought of planning the affair, and was 
rather ashamed of his lack of enterprise. 

But both he and Marmaduke felt that The Woman 
pressed the case against them just a little too strongly. 

“We’ll have to do something to make The Woman mind 
her own business, Troop,” Marmaduke declared, as they 
sat by the roaring fire in the stor-e one chilly afternoon. 
“She’ll ruin our innocent and harmless reputations if we 
don’t.” 

So the two put their heads together to plan a just 
retribution, but before it could be made to fall, The 
Woman astonished every one by an entirely new enter- 
prise. She packed her trunk, and leaving Marthy and 
Trooper to take care of themselves, she went away to 
spend the Winter on a visit to a sister in California. 

But to no one was the night of the concert such a 
great occasion as it was to Christina. Wallace Suther- 
land went back to his studies the next week, but the 
vision of his handsome smiling face and his gallant be- 
haviour remained vividly with her. She was filled with 
dismay at the contrast Gavin Grant had presented to him 
that night. It did not dawn upon Christina’s mind that 
Gavin would as soon have raised his hand to Auntie 
Elspie as to defend himself against poor old Piper 
Lauchie. Tilly had whispered that Gavin was scared, 
and the other girls, with Joanna’s able assistance, empha- 
sised the shameful fact. So when she saw him after the 


io8 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


concert, standing on the edge of the bar of light that 
streamed from the hall door, she slipped away as he 
turned towards her and escaped with John in the dark- 
ness. But Gavin noticed her haste and interpreted it 
aright. 

The Aunties sent a gay message by John, when he was 
over at the Craig-Ellachie threshing, to the effect that 
Elspie had broken off her engagement. She had heard 
that Piper Lauchie had taken to going to the Methodist 
church, and they had warned her that they would not 
abide a Methodist body in the family. But Christina 
could not joke about the Piper with Gavin, she felt he 
really must be humiliated, when, in fact, Gavin felt no 
more at fault than if he had backed out of the way of an 
enraged child and dodged his blows. 

But indeed Christina was giving him and his affairs 
very little thought. Her Dream Knight had taken form, 
she even knew his name and his station in life. And 
though he still rode gaily beyond the horizon she could 
not but think of him and wonder when she might see 
him again. 


CHAPTER VI 


Saint Valentine’s Prank 

B UT indeed there was no time for dreams with the 
days of preparation for Mary’s wedding flying past. 
It had been set for the Christmas holidays when the boys 
would be home, and Annie Brown, who was the neigh- 
bourhood dressmaker, spent almost all her days at the 
Lindsays now, for Allister’s cheque had bought many 
yards of silk and lace and Mary must be as fine as pos- 
sible to go away and live in a house in town and be 
dressed up every afternoon of her life. 

Christmas came with a rush on snow laden wings, and 
the boys came home and the old house was filled with 
noise and laughter. Sandy could not do enough for 
Christina, he followed her about, that she might not so 
much as lift a pail of water without his assistance, for he 
was always keenly conscious of all she was doing for 
him, and his conduct made Christina far happier than a 
college course could possibly make any human being. 
And then came the wedding before anybody was really 
ready, as weddings always do, with all the MacGillivrays 
from Port Stewart and all the McDonald relations from 
Glenoro. And then suddenly it was all over and Sandy 
and Neil were gone back to Toronto and Jimmie to Al- 
gonquin ; and Christina awoke to the astonishing and dis- 
maying fact that Mary had left them and gone far away 
to live in a home of her own. This last fact dwarfed 
all others and threw even Sandy’s absence into lighter 
gloom. 


109 


110 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


Early in the Winter she paid a short visit to Mary’s 
new home in Port Stewart. It was a wonderful place, 
with slippery hardwood floors that had to be polished 
instead of scrubbed, and shiny new furniture, and electric 
lights all over — you could press a little button in the 
hall at the front door and the light would flash up in the 
cellar ; and hot water upstairs in the bathroom ; and a tele- 
phone that rang your own number only, and through 
which no one could overhear what you were saying ; and 
a piano, and Mary taking music lessons, and she a mar- 
ried woman ! All these wonders had to be shouted again 
and again to Grandpa on Christina’s return, and he 
always ended the recital by clapping her on the back and 
declaring, — 

“Och, och, indeed, and it is our own electric light that 
will be back again, and it will jist be darkness when she 
is away.” 

If Christina came home filled with the wonder of 
Mary’s new house she was secretly much more impressed 
with the wonder of Mary’s new life. Surely it was hav- 
ing all your dreams come true to be married to a hand- 
some man who adored you and go to live with him in a 
fine house with a piano and polished floors. This must 
be the Great Adventure, not second even to a college 
course. What if the road out of Orchard Glen, which 
she had sought so persistently, and as yet without suc- 
cess, should not be the steep Path up Helicon, after all, 
but the rose hedged lane along which Mary had gone? 
Christina’s heart left her no doubt as to which road she 
would choose, were the choice hers. But when one’s True 
Knight was far away and merely nodded carelessly to one 
when he was near, what chance had one? She longed 
more keenly than ever to get out into the world of wider 
opportunity. 

The only excitement of the Winter was going to the 


SAINT VALENTINE’S PRANK in 

post office for the boys’ letters. They always came on 
Tuesday. Neil wrote home every Sunday of his life 
and his letter reached Orchard Glen post office on Tues- 
day afternoon. And Sandy wrote Sundays, too, or if he 
missed he sent a hurried note or post card later in the 
week. Then there was Mary’s weekly letter, an occa- 
sional one from Allister, and generally Bruce’s. At first 
Bruce was as faithful as Neil, but as the Winter ad- 
vanced he occasionally missed a Tuesday. 

“None from your beau to-day,” Christina called out one 
blustery February afternoon when she brought in the 
mail, and handed out letters from Sandy and Neil. “He’s 
likely got another girl in Toronto and forgotten all about 
you.” 

She was surprised to see that Ellen did not take her 
nonsense in her usual smooth good-natured way. She 
flushed and said nothing. Thereafter Christina kept a 
strict censorship over Bruce’s letters, and was slightly 
troubled to find that they were rather irregular. Ellen’s 
answer always went back the very next day, and Chris- 
tina could not help seeing that her sister was anxious 
and worried until another came. And occasionally a 
wearisome time elapsed before it did come. 

At first Christina’s unconquerable cheerfulness forbade 
its troubling her much. Bruce was probably working 
very hard as this was his first year. Sandy sometimes 
missed a week altogether and even Neil was known to 
delay a day or two when examinations were near. As 
for Jimmie, he declared that when he went to college he 
wouldn’t write to them at all except when he was home 
for the holidays. After all it must really be a great deal 
of trouble to have a sweetheart, as much care and worry, 
one seemed, as young Mrs. Martin’s cross baby. She 
just couldn’t understand anybody fretting over one, 


112 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


and she went round the house, putting wood in the stoves 
and seeing that Grandpa was kept warm, and singing, 

“Oh, I’m glad my heart’s my ain yet. 

And I’ll keep it sae all my life, 

Till some bonny laddie comes by 

That has wits that can wile a guid wife !” 

On Valentine’s Day she brought home a whole armful 
of letters. There was one for her from Allister, and 
she tore it open first, while Ellen eagerly opened one she 
had received. Allister had enclosed a valentine for Chris- 
tina, a horrible picture of a tall, thin, frowsy woman 
sweeping a house, and beneath an atrocious rhyme about 
the cross old maid who always stayed at home and swept 
and scrubbed. Christina remembered with glee that she 
had sent him one, quite as ugly, a fat old farmer, mean 
and tight-fisted, growing rich out of his ill-gotten gains. 
She read his letter, even before she took time to show 
the valentine to Grandpa, and it sent her dancing through 
the house in a way that alarmed her mother. For Allis- 
ter’s letter had, once more, opened up the door into the 
big outside world. 

“I have to go back East on business next Summer some 
time,” he wrote, “and I’m going to make you come back 
here for a visit. The rich bachelors are as thick as 
gophers out here and I think I ought to do something 
for them, even if I can’t get a wife for myself. So I’m 
going to get all the Orchard Glen girls out here, one by 
one, and I think you’ll do all right for a start. Camp- 
bell and his wife are on my place now and they’ll be fine 
folks for you to stay with. . . .” There was more 
about the details of her visit, but Christina could not 
read it for very joy. She went flying around the kitchen 
waving the letter over her head. 

“Hurrah !” she cried, “I’m going out West ! I’m going 
to Alberta ! My Valentine’s sent for me !” 


SAINT VALENTINE’S PRANK 


113 

“What’s all this?” cried Uncle Neil, coming in from 
the barn and stamping the snow from his feet. “I hope 
you’re not thinking about going to-day, there’s likely a 
blizzard on the prairies.” 

Christina flew at him, crying out incoherent bits from 
Allister’s letter, and then rushed into the sitting-room 
where her mother sat by the stove. 

“Be wise, Christina, be wise,” warned her mother, after 
she had rejoiced mildly with her, “I’m often feared for 
you, when I see you so bent on the things of the world.” 

Christina pulled her high spirits down to a discreet 
level and went back to the corner of the kitchen, where 
Grandpa sat in his old rocker, to share the joyful tidings 
with him. But before she had attracted his attention 
from the book of Moody’s sermons he was reading, she 
suddenly stopped. She realised with a pang that this 
wonderful good fortune that had come to her would be 
exceedingly ill news for poor Grandpa. There was no 
need to tell him until the time was near for her to go. 
She went back to the table and picked up the other letters 
she had dropped in her excitement. 

A glance at Ellen showed that there was no valentine 
message from Bruce ; but Christina found three for her- 
self. 

There was a very gorgeous one, all red hearts and 
lovers’ knots, from Sandy. The second was from an un- 
known source. It was a dainty thing, fashioned by an 
artistic hand, a little sprig of heather glued to a card 
to form" the letter C. Beneath was written in a mas- 
culine hand. 


“My Love is young and fair, 
My Love has golden hair, 

And eyes so blue 

And heart so true 

That none with her compare.” 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


114 

Christina wondered over it for a few minutes ; the 
lines seemed familiar. Where had she heard them be- 
fore, she asked with beating heart. The postmark was 
Algonquin, but then every one who sent a valentine from 
Orchard Glen mailed it in Algonquin. She looked at it 
closely, and then noticed the scent of rosemary. It had 
come from Craig-Ellachie ! and the little lines were from 
the song “A Warrior Bold” that Gavin sang. 

Christina was touched. It was so ungracious to receive 
gifts from Love’s storehouse without even a thrill of 
gratitude. She had thought Gavin was forgetting her. 
He was so good, and so kind, too, and she loved all the 
Grant Girls so. But how was it possible to make a hero 
out of a young man who could only sing of heroic deeds, 
and would never, never perform one? 

She slowly opened the last valentine. It belonged to 
the class that she and Allister had exchanged. It was 
very ugly and very funny ; a picture of a tall, lank woman 
in spectacles and a college gown, her claw-like hands 
holding a ponderous volume. Christina laughed gaily and 
mentally blamed John, either he or Jimmie was surely 
the guilty person. 

But she looked at the post-mark again and saw to her 
surprise that it had a United States stamp, and the place 
stamped on the envelope was one she knew nothing what- 
ever about, El Monte, California. 

“Look at this,” she cried, running to Ellen. “Who do 
we know in California ?” 

“Why, what in the world?” asked Ellen in bewilder- 
ment. “I’ve got a perfectly horrible one from the very 
same place.” 

It was quite true, a very ugly and insulting thing it was, 
with the same post-mark, El Monte, and furthermore, it 
transpired that there was one for John and one for Jim- 
mie in the same queer printed hand with the same post- 


SAINT VALENTINE’S PRANK 


Hi 

mark ! and as for Uncle Neil’s— a foolish old man with a 
fiddle — it was quite the funniest thing Christina had ever 
seen. 

When John and Uncle Neil had received their insults 
and laughed over them, there was much speculation. The 
family could scarcely eat their supper through wondering 
who had sent them. 

“El Monte,” spelled John, spreading them all out on the 
table before him. “Now, who is it we know in that 
place? I’ve heard somebody talk about going there.' 

“Oh,” cried Jimmie with one of his high-pitched yells, 
“that’s where The Woman went! Mrs. Johnnie Dunn’s 
there for the Winter. That’s where her sister lives, I 
heard Trooper say so the other day.” 

The family looked at each other dumbfounded. 

It surely could not be possible. The Woman had al- 
ways been a faithful friend of Mrs. Lindsay and it was 
hardly likely she would take all this trouble to send 
such folish messages to her family. Indeed Mrs. Johnnie 
Dunn would think twice of the money before she spent it 
on such nonsense. 

“Indeed it would not be Sarah,” declared Mrs. Lindsay 
as they argued and speculated. “She would be far from 
doing such a thing. Maybe you will find soon who it 
is.” 

But further light on the subject only went to fasten 
suspicion upon Sarah. It appeared that the Lindsays 
were not by any means the only ones in Orchard Glen 
who had received valentines from California. There 
was such a rain of love’s tokens upon the village on the 
Fourteenth of February that Tilly and her father were 
nearly drowned in the deluge and had to call in the aid of 
Mrs. Holmes and Aunt Jinny to help keep their heads 
above water ! 

And the day after the Fourteenth was almost as bad, 


n6 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


many having been delayed, probably owing to congestion 
of the mails between El Monte and Orchard Glen. 

And every person in the village, almost, from Granny 
Minns to the Martins’ youngest and naughtiest child, re- 
ceived a valentine, a very ugly and insulting valentine, 
too, from that place in California where The Woman had 
gone to spend the Winter ! 

At first the universality of the insult was not recog- 
nised, as each person strove to conceal his own personal 
injury. But neighbour began to confide in neighbour till 
at last the whole evil scheme was uncovered. 

No one had seemed insignificant enough to be over- 
looked, no one was high enough to be immune. Even 
Mrs. Sutherland and the ministers were not slighted. 
Dr. McGarry’s was a picture of a quack giving 
bread pills to old women and babies, and he roared and 
laughed long and loud over it, and showed it to every 
one in spite of his sister. 

The Methodist minister’s, the Baptist minister’s, and 
Mr. Sinclair’s were all exactly alike, violent-looking 
preachers with gusts of texts flying from their wide- 
open mouths, and sly rhymes concerning their denomina- 
tional differences. The pretty little school teacher’s was 
so mean that she couldn’t go to school the next day, she 
cried so hard; and Mrs. Sinclair said that, of course, 
one should be above these things, but as far as she was 
concerned, she felt she needed all the Christian grace she 
possessed to forgive the unscrupulous person who had 
sent hers. 

At first it did not seem possible that Mrs. Johnnie 
Dunn, that sensible, practical woman, could be the guilty 
party. At the very worst, her friends felt, she might 
have told the names of the people in the village, and some 
foolish mischief-maker — there were all kinds of folks in 
the States — had done the rest. But as each valentine was 


SAINT VALENTINE’S PRANK 117 

revealed it grew plainer that only some one intimately 
acquainted with the life of Orchard Glen could have 
chosen with such evil sagacity. 

Who, for instance, outside Orchard Glen, knew that 
young Mrs. Martin had been a perfect martinet in her 
teaching days, but had now lost all her old power with 
the rod, and her children were the terror of the village ? 
And who but a neighbour could have known that Granny 
Minns scolded Mitty all day long and pretended she was 
much more feeble than she really was ? And who could 
have such an intimate knowledge of the flirtations of 
Tilly Tolmes, and the dual organist’s position held by 
Martha Henderson and Minnie McKenzie, and the cool- 
ness between Mr. Wylie and Mr. Sinclair since the night 
of the Piper’s mistake? 

It was Marmaduke who finally convinced the public 
mind that The Woman must be the perpetrator of the 
valentines ; not a difficult case to prove. 

He and Trooper had received quite the worst and most 
insulting of all the mail bag and Trooper’s was particu- 
larly stinging. Marmaduke declared there was something 
in it that showed beyond doubt that it must have been 
The Woman, but Trooper did not like to say so, seeing 
that she was his aunt. But couldn’t they see the post- 
mark ? And didn’t every one know that she was visiting 
her sister in El Monte? 

All the storms of the Winter were as a summer calm 
besides the gale the valentines raised. Nobody talked 
about anything else. They would just wait till The 
Woman came home in the Spring and then they would 
show her that she could not insult her neighbours like 
that and her away wintering in the South as if she were 
a millionairess! 

The valentines was still the chief subject under dis- 
cussion when The Woman came back in April. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


118 

The roads were too muddy to take the car to town, so 
Trooper and Marthy met her with the double buggy at 
Silver Creek, a nearby flag station, and drove home with- 
out preparing her for her reception. As they came down 
the muddy street of Orchard Glen with the brown fields 
smiling in the sun and the first hint of Spring showing 
in the soft tender tint of the willows beside the creek, 
The Woman declared that it was a sight better than 
California any day, and she was mighty glad to get home 
and see all her old friends, and take a holt of things again, 
for she supposed that she ought to be thankful if the two 
of them hadn’t let everything go to the dogs while she 
was away. 

They pulled up at the post office and The Woman 
hailed Mr. Holmes and Tilly jovially. 

“Hello in there!” she shouted. “Still at the old job, 
I do declare!” Ordinarily the postmaster would have 
received her with the utmost cordiality, but he could not 
forget that picture of himself as the old Socrates of the 
village giving forth spurious wisdom, and he replied very 
stiffly. 

Tilly merely shook hands in a great hurry and fled to 
the back of the store, and young Mr. Martin, who was 
there in a panic for a bottle of emetic for the second 
youngest who had drunk some shoe polish, did not even 
take the trouble to speak, but dashed past her without 
a word. He wondered if she would be sorry for what 
she had done if one of his children was to be poisoned. 
Marmaduke was at the store and Trooper made him 
climb into the buggy and drive home to help welcome his 
aunt. Duke was as cordial as ever and uproariously glad 
to see her, but he was alone; throughout the village, 
averted faces and cold looks met her on every side. Even 
Joanna, coming down the street, who had a brilliant smile 


SAINT VALENTINE’S PRANK 


119 

for Trooper, tossed her head and looked the other way, 
when his aunt spoke. 

‘‘Now, what in the world’s up and give all these folks 
the stomach ache, I’d like to know ?” she asked in anger 
and bewilderment, as they splashed through the muddy 
street. 

“It’s all about them dretful valentines, Sarah/’ com- 
plained the patient Marthy. “What ever did you send 
them for anyways?” 

“Valentines?” she exclaimed. “What are you talkin’ 
about?” 

“Why, them Valentines you sent everybody. Most 
folks is awful mad about them.” 

The two young men on the front seat were sitting side 
by side gazing over the blue-grey landscape with faces of 
rapt innocence. They did not appear to be interested in 
the conversation in the back seat, but his aunt gave 
Trooper a sharp poke with her umbrella. 

“What’s this foolishness about valentines he’s tellin’ 
me about?” 

“Aw, now, Aunt Sarah, you know,” he said, turning to 
her with gentle reproof. “He means them valentines you 
sent.” 

“I didn’t mind a scrap about mine,” put in Duke gen- 
erously; “I knowed it was just your fun. They didn’t 
need to get so mad.” 

“That’s what I told everybody,” supplemented Trooper. 
“I said you only meant it for a joke.” 

Mrs. Dunn leaned back in the buggy seat helplessly. 
“If you ain’t all gone clean out of your minds ; will you 
tell me what you’re ravin’ about?” she demanded. 

It was some time before the young men could be per- 
suaded to tell her, insisting upon taking her attitude as a 
joke. But finally the truth came out. Every one in 
Orchard Glen had received an insulting valentine from 


120 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


El Monte last Winter, and everybody, of course, blamed 
her and was as mad as mad could be. 

By the time they reached home and had sat down to the 
supper that Marmaduke had prepared in the morning, 
The Woman was angry enough to go out and challenge 
every one in Orchard Glen to dare to say she had done 
the fell deed. She began to question as to who had 
received the missives. Mrs. Sutherland? Yes, hers was 
a fright, the Doctor had said, and the Doctor’s was worse. 
Not Mrs. Wylie, surely? Why, Mrs. Wylie couldn’t sleep 
the night after she got hers, and it didn’t seem fair, her 
not really belonging to Orchard Glen. The Ministers? 
Oh, yes ; theirs were awful sights, neither of them 
preached the same for a month after. 

Surely Mary Lindsay didn’t get one? No, but all the 
family did, and the Grant Girls, too. The Grant Girls 
got terrors, folks said, and there was some talk about 
Gavin saying he’d have the law about it. Gavin was 
awful sensitive about the Aunties and he was firing 
mad. 

Poor Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, her home-coming was com- 
pletely spoiled ! She got up early the next morning, and 
not even waiting to look over the premises to see what 
damage Marthy and Trooper had done in her absence, 
she hitched up her mare and drove over through all the 
mud and water to Craig-Ellachie, and took in the Lind- 
says on her way back. There was nothing lacking in the 
Grant Girls’ welcome, and she was a little comforted but 
also much disturbed. The Aunties showed her their 
valentines, and Gavin’s, but they laughed heartily over 
them, and Mrs. Lindsay allowed the girls to display 
theirs, assuring her that she had never believed her the 
sender. But it was beyond doubt that they had all come 
from El Monte, and that the addresses had all been 
printed by the same hand. 


SAINT VALENTINE’S PRANK 


121 


The Woman spread them out on the table before her 
and meditated. “There’s that young villain of a boy my 
sister has. He’s another Trooper all over again, and 
worse, ’cause he ain’t got me to trim him down. He’d 
be capable of doing it. But he couldn’t. He doesn’t 
know even the names of folks here, unless Trooper — 
Trooper — ” She stopped and sat bolt upright. 

“I’ll bet,” she said deliberately, while Christina fled 
from the room that she might laugh aloud, “I’ll bet every 
cent I make out o’ milk this Summer that Trooper and 
that other emissary of Satan is at the bottom of this and 
you’ll see I’ll find out.” 

But the damage had been done. Poor Mrs. Johnnie 
Dunn had a very harmless but very great desire to shine 
before her neighbours. She had expected to return to 
Orchard Glen with a blare of trumpets and astonish 
every one with her tales of California with geraniums in 
the garden at Christmas, and bathing in the ocean in 
January, and oranges everywhere for the picking, and a 
host of kindred wonders in which her untravelled neigh- 
bour friends were to be instructed. And instead she 
found the very name of California and El Monte were 
a byword and a hissing in the mouths of the inhabitants 
of Orchard Glen, and had to spend the first month after 
her return in voluble explanations and denials. 


CHAPTER VII 


Off With the Old Love 

I T seemed to Christina as if there had never been a 
summer that opened so joyously. In the first place she 
was preparing to go West with Allister when he came 
home in July, and she would not be very far from the 
Mission Field where Neil had gone, and that was good 
fortune enough in itself. Added to that, Sandy came 
home in May, and life was all holiday when Sandy was 
near, but best of all, at the closing of college, who should 
come riding over the hills but her Dream Knight. He was 
to stay the whole summer, Tilly explained on Sunday 
when he appeared with his mother and uncle at church, 
and Mrs. Sutherland was scared to let him go beyond the 
garden gate alone. 

Though his coming to Orchard Glen brought such joy 
to Christina, young Mr. Sutherland had really come home 
under a cloud, though his mother took great care to turn 
it inside out for the public benefit and allow the silver lin- 
ing of Wallace’s many virtues to shine through. He was 
so handsome and so genuinely glad to see everybody in 
Orchard Glen, and so free and hearty in his manner, that 
it was very easy for people to believe the best of him. 
And indeed the worst was only that he had been a little 
less studious in college than he should have been. 

He had barely passed his examinations in his first year, 
and now in his second, when he should have retrieved 
himself, he had gone under altogether. And the worst of 


122 


OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE 


12 3 

it all was that Uncle William, who was paying his college 
bills, and who was rich and childless and would never 
miss the money, was making a dreadful fuss. Wallace 
wrote him apologising deeply, and explaining just how 
it all happened, the inconvenient examinations having 
come on just when he was labouring under a heavy cold. 

Mrs. Sutherland wrote her brother explaining still 
further, Wallace had been ill, he was not at all well now. 
He had been really quite indisposed all Spring, and it 
was cruel to blame the dear boy for not studying. 

But Uncle William seemed to enjoy being cruel. He 
wrote that he had done his best to give her son an educa- 
tion, but it appeared that it couldn’t be done, and he felt 
it was time to stop wasting money. So he was sending 
Wallace home to her to see what she could make of 
him. Perhaps she could find something for him to do 
in Orchard Glen that would not tax his mentality as the 
University seemed to have done. 

Poor Mrs. Sutherland was overcome with grief. Dr. 
McGarry was too, and he stormed and scolded Wallace 
and his sister by turns, and ended up by declaring that 
William was getting to be nothing but a skinflint and 
that he might give the boy another chance. 

Wallace alone seemed undisturbed. He felt sure that 
Uncle William’s bilious attack, as he termed his differ- 
ence with his patron, would pass off, and that he would be 
ready to forgive him in October. So he settled him- 
self in the old home with a tremendous display of books 
and a fine appearance of studiousness, and declared he 
would work so hard that when the Autumn term opened 
he would pass any examination they could possibly set 
before him. 

His mother and uncle caught his optimism and were 
both soon ready to agree that all would be well. So 
Wallace spent the Summer very happily in Orchard Glen, 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


124 

lying in the hammock under the trees, always with his 
books, or driving about the country in the Doctor’s car. 

But poor Mrs. Sutherland had little enjoyment in his 
home-coming. She was really a very neighbourly soul, 
in spite of a few strange ideas about social usages, and 
she was now condemned to the difficult task of keeping 
Wallace at his studies, and away from the young life 
about him, and that in a village where the girls were as 
thick as the thistles along the roadside. 

First there was that pretty young simpleton at the 
corner store, who giggled all the time, and made it dan- 
gerous for Wallace even to go for the mail. Then there 
was that family at Browns up on the hill with girls 
of all ages. And there were those Lindsays, for though 
the most dangerous one was married and out of the way, 
and another one said to be engaged, there was still an- 
other, very attractive and quite too smart. And there 
was that bold, black-eyed daughter of the blacksmith, 
who lived next door. She was too old for Wallace, but 
those mature girls were the most to be feared. And 
indeed, there was no safety whatever way you turned. 

His mother had hoped for some relaxation when 
Wallace decided to spend an hour or so each morning 
under Mr. Sinclair’s tutoring, but no sooner had this 
haven been provided, than the minister’s daughter, a fine 
looking, high-spirited girl, came home for her holidays, 
from her school teaching. 

So Mrs. Sutherland remained a prisoner in her own 
home, on guard over her son. And the girls of the vil- 
lage did all in their power to make her task most difficult. 

And though Christina would have disdained to take 
any part in their schemes to meet Wallace, she managed 
to see her True Knight quite often and the Summer was 
a very happy one. 

She always received a nod and a bright smile from 


OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE 


12 5 

him on Sundays, and sometimes on week days when she 
went down into the village. And he was always as gay 
and as debonair and handsome as anybody could wish a 
Dream Knight to be. 

Sandy came home full of joyous relief that at last 
Christina was to get away out into the world. The trip 
to the West was not as good as college, of course, but 
Allister would give her a chance for an education yet, 
when this pinched time that he was passing through was 
over. 

“I hate the thought of your going away,” Sandy grum- 
bled. ''Girls ought to get married,” he added, struggling 
confusedly with this first experience with femininism. 
Mary’s career and Ellen’s prospects were the only right 
and proper sphere for a girl. 

Privately Christina thought so, too. 

“But I can’t get anybody to marry me,” she said 
gaily. “So what am I to do? There’s nobody in Or- 
chard Glen wants me except” — she paused, perhaps she 
was wrong after all about Gavin’s caring for her — “ex- 
cept Marmaduke,” she added on second thought. 

“And I’ll bet if any fellow in Orchard Glen asked you 
to marry him you’d turn up your nose at him,” com- 
plained Sandy. “My, but girls are queer. Now, if that 
Wallace Sutherland was to come along I suppose you’d 
be like the rest and be as sweet as honey to him, and 
you wouldn’t look at a fellow like Gavin Grant. And 
I wouldn’t give Gavin for a wagon load of Wallace 
Sutherlands.” 

Christina’s cheeks grew crimson. Sandy had drawn 
a bow at a venture, but had hit right in the centre of 
the mark. But she responded gallantly. 

“Neither would I. I wouldn’t know what to do with 
a wagon load of him. But one would be very nice — 
loaded on an auto,” she added slyly. 


126 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


Sandy sniffed ; but he could not dispute long with 
Christina over anything. They had grand times together, 
as June came in and they fell into their old habit of 
sitting in the evenings on the pump platform. There 
were long confidential talks there, under the apple boughs, 
too. Sandy’s mind, under Neil’s careful guardianship, 
was turning more and more towards the ministry as his 
life-work. And every day Christina grew more thank- 
ful that she had not been the means of holding him back. 

She had not yet confessed to Grandpa that his electric 
light was to be switched off before the end of the sum- 
mer. Christina had not found an occasion when she 
could summon sufficient courage to break the news to 
him. It would be time enough when she had to tell him. 
So he sang his evening hymn and read his morning 
psalms of thanksgiving undisturbed. 

And to make things even better for Christina Mary 
came home in June. Hugh McGillivray had gone to 
Toronto on business and Mary came back to the old 
farm for a visit during his absence. Mary looked more 
beautiful than ever, in her new town-made clothes, and 
Christina was very proud of her as they went about the 
village together. 

The practice for the Presbyterian Church’s first of 
July picnic was in full swing, and as there were no 
Methodists helping this year, the Presbyterians had to 
do double duty. Mary went to practise with her sisters 
and had a grand reunion with all the girls. 

“Christine, where’s Bruce to-night?” she asked, as 
they came up the hill on the way home together, with 
Ellen walking ahead beside Annie McKenzie. 

“Bruce? I don’t know,” confessed Christina. “Oh, 
he hasn’t come to practise much since he came back from 
Toronto.” 

“No, and it’s my opinion he hasn’t been going to any- 


OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE 


127 

thing else,” declared Mary. “Do you know that he has 
been here only once since I came home?” 

Christina listened in dismay. She had been so ab- 
sorbed in her joyous preparations for going West that 
she had actually not noticed what was quite apparent to 
Mary. 

“Maybe he and Ellen have had a lover’s quarrel,” she 
whispered hopefully. 

“Nothing of the sort,” scoffed Mary. “Can you 
imagine any one quarrelling with Ellen or Bruce either — 
and as for their quarrelling between themselves !” 

Christina was forced to admit that was extremely un- 
likely. And as she watched Ellen she could not but be 
convinced that there was something woefully wrong be- 
tween her and Bruce. 

“You couldn’t think that he doesn’t care for Ellen any 
more, could you?” faltered Christina as she and Mary 
held a second conference. 

“Wouldn’t it be awful,” cried Mary aghast. “I can’t 
remember when Bruce wasn’t in love with Ellen and was 
coming here to see her. It would be an insult to the 
whole family !” she cried hotly. 

Christina was not concerned about the family honour, 
but she was very much disturbed over Ellen. And then 
it was a heartbreaking thing to lose Bruce, too. He had 
always seemed like a brother, and it was almost as 
bad as if Neil or Sandy should become estranged. 

Poor Ellen was striving hard to hide her hurt, and 
made heroic efforts to explain Bruce’s changed manners. 
He was tired with all the unaccustomed work of the 
farm, he had to study at nights and that kept him at 
home. She was always ready with an excuse for his un- 
accustomed absence. 

“Where’s Bruce, Ellie?” asked her mother one Sun- 


128 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


day evening, when the usual crowd strolled in after 
the Methodist service. 

“He’s back at the gate with the boys, Mother,” said 
Ellen with affected carelessness. “He’ll likely be in 
later.” 

Bruce did come in later with John, but he did not stay 
late and went home when Annie and Katie left. 

Of course Joanna did not fail to notice the change in 
Bruce and remark upon it. There was a little crowd at 
the Lindsays one evening to see Mary, when the Mc- 
Kenzie contingent entered without him. 

“Where’s your family doctor, Ellen?” Joanna in- 
quired. “You’ll have to look after your fellow better 
than you’re doing!” 

Ellen looked at her with quiet dignity, but her cheeks 
grew crimson. 

“It’s very good of you to be so interested in him, 
Joanna,” she said. 

“Course I’m interested in all my neighbours. Here’s 
the whole McKenzie outfit, every one of them, but 
your particular one. Annie, you keep Bruce tied up as 
close as Ma Sutherland does her little boy. What have 
you done with him?” 

Annie McKenzie was Ellen’s close friend. She looked 
embarrassed. 

“He’s tired. He’s been working in the field all day 
and now he’s got studying to do at night,” she declared 
hurriedly. 

“My ! If you let him study that hard he ought to be 
a doctor about next Christmas! Maybe he’s hurrying 
up so’s he can get married a year or two sooner !” 

Ellen’s face grew pale, but Mary was there. Mary 
Lindsay had always been a match for Joanna in a quiet 
elusive way, and now from the vantage ground of a 


OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE 


129 

rather brilliant marriage Mary McGillivray was still 
more to be feared. 

“Oh, Joanna,” she said suavely, “a long piece of 
your hair is hanging down at the back. There’s a look- 
ing-glass on the wall over there where Trooper’s stand- 
ing. Would you like to go and fix it?” 

Joanna flounced away into the bed-room completely 
routed. There was something subtle about Mary that 
one could not combat. 

Bruce dropped in late at the next practice that was 
held in the church. He sat in the back seat and talked 
with the other boys during intermission, but his very 
presence seemed to make Ellen happy. She became radi- 
ant, and chatted and laughed gaily with the other girls, 
looking handsomer than she had for many a day. 

When they started home, Christina, with an eye for 
Gavin, kept carefully in the crowd. But Gavin had 
turned and gone away at once with the other boys who 
were unattached. And with the perversity of a woman’s 
mind Christina felt a little hurt. She wondered why he 
seemed to have stopped trying for her favour. Was it 
because he was discouraged, or because he did not care ? 
She was so far from understanding Gavin that she did 
not guess that his pride was keeping him aloof. 

Annie McKenzie and Ellen were ahead, and Christina 
found herself walking beside Bruce. This was not un- 
usual, for Bruce had always been so much one of the 
family that he just as often walked with her or one of 
the boys as with Ellen. She was so happy that she was 
impelled to express her joy. 

“It’s so nice to see you at practice, Bruce,” she said. 
“It’s lonesome here when all the boys are away.” 

“Yes, it’s good to be home again,” said Bruce with- 
out enthusiasm. “But I think I’ve got the city fever 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


130 

rather badly. I just couldn’t settle down in Orchard 
Glen, now that I’ve been away.” 

Christina sympathised. “I fancy I’ll feel like that 
when I go away,” she ventured. 

“Yes, you will,” he declared. “When you get away 
you realise how small and narrow everything in your life 
has been. It changes a person completely. Nothing 
seems the same.” He spoke in tones of depression. He 
was not at all the old Bruce who had been always kind 
and cheery, and almost as nice as John. 

Christina experienced a feeling of dismay. “Nothing 
seems the same,” weighed heavily upon her heart. 

He came in for the evening lunch the Lindsay kitchen 
always furnished, but he went away when the rest left, 
and did not have a word with Ellen alone. 

“What were you and Bruce talking about so seri- 
ously?” asked Ellen with forced lightness, as she and 
Christina put away the remains of the feast in the cellar. 

“Oh, nothing much,” said Christina confused. “About 
Toronto mostly. He likes it awfully well there,” and 
she hurried away into Grandpa’s room to take her last 
look at him and see that he was comfortable, and avoided 
further questioning. 

“Tell me all about him when you write next,” Mary 
said when Hugh came as radiant and eager as on her 
wedding day to take her home. 

Christina promised. “It wouldn’t be so bad if every- 
body "wasn’t so interested,” she said with a sigh. “It’s 
Joanna; that’s the worst part of it.” 

“This is such a narrow gossipy little place,” com- 
plained the lady from the metropolis. “I’ll be glad when 
you get away out West with Allister, Christine.” 

“But Ellen can’t get away from it,” said Christina, 
“and mother’s been here nearly all her life and she’s not 
narrow nor gossipy.” For Christina was not quite so 


OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE 


131 

sure now that she really wanted to get away. Ellen’s 
undeniable trouble was taking away much of the joy 
of her sister’s good fortune. 

When the time came to write Mary, the news of Bruce 
was not encouraging. He came to the house very sel- 
dom, was almost melancholy and not at all his old self, 
and every one in the family noticed the change. Even 
Uncle Neil asked what was the matter between Ellen 
and Bruce, and he carefully avoided singing the “Stand- 
ard on the Braes o’ Mar” in the evening, knowing that 
there would be no McKenzie’s man coming over the hills 
as in the old joyous days. 

And so June slipped away and Allister wrote that 
he would come about the middle of July and for Chris- 
tina to be ready. She felt that she could no longer put 
off the evil day of telling Grandpa and one night as she 
helped him to bed resolved to prepare him. 

“I’ve got something to tell you,” she shouted as she 
gave him his hymn book and put back the curtain. “But 
there isn’t time to-night. I’ll tell you to-morrow.” 

“Eh, eh, that’ll be fine,” said Grandpa, who was always 
looking forward to good things. “Don’t forget about it.” 
And after she left, she heard him say, 

“Eh, eh, but it’s a fine bit lassie. Eh, there’s not such 
another — not such another!” 

Christina felt a big lump choking her as she went 
upstairs to dress for practice. 

Bruce appeared at practice again, and as the boys and 
girls paired off to go home, Christina noticed with great 
joy that he took his old place at Ellen’s side and they 
walked away together. 

Sandy had gone off with Margaret Sinclair again, and 
Christina joined herself to Burke Wright and Mitty, and 
later to Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. The Woman was still 
hot on the scent of the valentines and her remarks on 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


132 

the subject were highly amusing. They passed Ellen and 
Bruce, and Christina noticed joyfully that they were 
walking very slowly and were in deep conversation. It 
was still more encouraging, as she slipped into the house 
alone, to see that they were standing at the gate very 
much absorbed. 

Her mother was moving about the kitchen. No matter 
how late her children were in getting home she always 
lingered till all were safely in the house. 

“Bruce and Ellen are hanging over the gate,” whis- 
pered Christina excitedly. “They’ve taken about half 
an hour getting home.” 

“They’ll be all right, then?” whispered her mother 
eagerly. 

“Oh, yes,” cried Christina joyfully. “I’ll tell you all 
about it in the morning. You go away to bed now, 
mother, and I’ll set the bread.” 

Her mother went slowly to her room, and Christina 
bustled about the kitchen. She had got out the bowl 
and the flour, when she heard Ellen’s step on the old 
creaking veranda floor. The door opened and Christina 
turned with a word of gay raillery, but stopped sud- 
denly. Ellen stood in the doorway looking white and 
dazed, as though some one had given her a blow. 

“Ellen !” cried Christina aghast. “What is the matter? 
Are you sick?” Her sister did not seem to hear. She 
did not answer, but passed the door and went on up- 
stairs, slowly and stumbling, as though she were Grand- 
pa’s age! 

Sandy came in from the woodshed door to find Chris- 
tina standing overcome in the middle of the kitchen. 
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Did you see a ghost?” 

“Oh, Sandy,” Christina was full of dismay, “some- 
thing is wrong with Ellen and Bruce. Something 
dreadful.” 


OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE 


133 

Sandy was deeply concerned as he listened. This 
was no mere girl’s love affair like the sort Mary would 
have had. Bruce and Ellen had always been lovers. It 
was like hearing that John had broken with the family. 

“Ellen just can’t stand it here any longer,” Christina 
burst out at last. “The girls are all talking about her, 
and Joanna is just dreadful ; and, oh, Sandy, do you think 
I ought to let her go West instead of me?” 

“Now, you look here!” cried Sandy violently, “don’t 
you go talking like that any more. If there’s anybody 
has to stay home I will. You just can’t be the one that’s 
always left. Cheer up. Wait till you ask Ellen what’s 
up. Maybe it’s not so bad, after all !” 

It was just as bad as it could be, Christina felt sure, 
as she lay awake in the night listening to Ellen’s slow 
deep sobs, not daring to ask the cause. The Lindsay girls 
were reticent, especially about affairs of the heart, and 
Christina hesitated to intrude. It was not till they were 
alone in the spring house with the churning the next 
morning, that the opening to the subject came and Ellen 
herself made it. She had gone about her work, pale and 
spiritless all morning, her mother’s kindly eyes watching 
her with anxiety. 

“Christine,” Ellen said, when the picnic was broached, 
“I wish you’d tell Mrs. Johnnie Dunn you’ll take my 
place on the tea committee, will you? I don’t want to 
g°” 

“Of course I will,” said Christina. “But don’t you 
want to go to the picnic ?” 

Ellen turned her back and busied herself with some- 
thing in the far end of the dim little cellar. “I don’t 
want to ever go to a picnic again, as long as I live,” she 
said quietly. 

“Ellen !” cried Christina in dismay, “what is it ? Have 
you and Bruce — what’s the matter? Did you quarrel?” 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


134 

“No, it would be better if we had.” Ellen seemed to 
be relieved at the possibility of unburdening her heart. 
“He’s just got tired of me — that’s all.” 

She said it with a quiet bitterness that was far more 
sorrowful than a rush of tears. Christina felt her anger 
rise with her grief. 

“Why, I never heard of anything so abominable — ” 
she commenced stormily, but her sister stopped her. 

“No, I won’t listen to anything against him. Bruce 
is just as good — ” she stopped overcome for a moment. 
“It isn’t his fault,” she went on, regaining her self-con- 
trol. “He feels awful about it. He didn’t want to tell 
me, but I made him, last night. I knew there was some- 
thing, ever since last Christmas. And it’s been getting 
worse all summer and I couldn’t stand it any longer. 
He’s changed since he went away. And he, — I’ve never 
been anywhere outside of Orchard Glen, and he’s seen 
the difference. He’s gone ahead of me, that’s all and he 
couldn’t help it.” 

She finished in a whisper, and stood looking before 
her in a kind of dazed despair. “I don’t know,” — she 
faltered, — “I don’t seem to know how to start over 
again,” she said with an air of bewilderment. 

“Oh, Ellen !” cried Christina in a sudden rush of ten- 
derness and pity that had to have an outlet, “wouldn’t 
you like to go away for a while, till — right now, and do 
something and — and catch up?” 

A light flashed up for a moment in Ellen’s eyes, but 
faded immediately. “How could I?” she cried, “and 
leave them here alone — I might as well think of going to 
the moon.” 

“But you can. Yes, you must, right away. Allister 
would just as soon have you go out there as me. He 
said so, but he didn’t think you would, and you’ll go 
and I’ll stay at home. It will only be for a little while, 


OFF WITH THE OLD LOVE 


135 

and you can see everything, and it’ll just be grand! — ” 
her eyes were shining, her cheeks pink with excitement. 

“Christine!” Ellen looked at the little sister, her eyes 
filled with unspeakable gratitude. “Oh, it wouldn’t be 
right to let you — but if I only could — just for a little 
while, till he goes arway, I might stand — ” 

She sank down upon a little low bench and buried her 
face in her apron. “It seems too good to be true,” she 
sobbed. 

Christina had a sudden vivid remembrance of a time 
when she dropped the heavy trap door of the cellar in 
a foolish prank and barely escaped giving Ellen a terrible 
blow on the head. And this time she might have killed 
her if she had been careless enough to forsake her in 
the day of her despair! 


CHAPTER VIII 


The War Drum 


ND what would the grand news be that you promised 



to tell me?” asked Grandpa, that evening, when 
bed-time came and Christina was getting the little hymn- 
book ready. 

“The news?” she hesitated, nonplussed. Then she 
went close and shouted into his ear, “Allister is going to 
take Ellen back to Prairie Park when he comes home, 
and perhaps she will stay with him all next winter.” 

And she ran away before he could ask her to go into 
any of the details. But she could not help hearing him 
as he talked it over with himself. And the result of his 
conversation was that though he did not like to see any 
one of the family leave, and especially one of his girls, 
he was reconciled. 

“Aye, it’ll be grand for Elbe, she’s not been away, 
the bit lass, for a long time. But it’s a grand thing he 
didn’t take away my own lass. Eh, ah’m a selfish old 
body, but ah could ill spare her.” 

And once more Christina was rather surprised that she 
was not desperately disappointed. It was hard to be 
very sad in the face of Grandpa’s perfect contentment 
and Ellen’s overwhelming relief. 

And so once more Christina turned her feet resolutely 
from the road to success to walk in the commonplace 
paths of field and farmyard and home. Allister came 
and took Ellen away with him in July. He was disap- 


136 


THE WAR DRUM 


137 

pointed at Christina’s failure to accompany him, but 
promised her the long deferred college course would be 
hers yet. He was putting through a new deal and if all 
went well he might be a millionaire one day. 

“Now old Lady Stick-in-the-mud,” he shouted jovially, 
as he bade Christina good-bye, “I see I can’t pull you out 
of this place with a stumping machine just yet. But I’ll 
call around for you again in about five years or so, and 
perhaps you’ll be ready then.” 

Christina tried to laugh and take it all in good part, 
but it was harder to be misunderstood than it was to give 
up her chance to Ellen. But her sister did not misunder- 
stand her. “I’ll come home soon and do the work and 
let you have your turn, Christine,” she whispered tremu- 
lously, as she said good-bye. “And oh, oh, Christine, I 
can’t ever, ever tell you how good you’ve been to me !” 

That was Christina’s reward and it helped her in the 
days that followed. For they were not easy days. The 
heavy summer work was on, and Ellen’s ready hands had 
taken more than half the tasks. Her mother missed Ellen 
sorely and was able to do less every day though she tried 
in every way to help. 

And then John went down to the corner and hired 
Mitty to come up three days a week and do the heavy 
work, the washing and cleaning, and other things on days 
when the churning and baking took all Christina’s time. 

Poor Mitty was delighted to come. Burke had gone 
to work in Algonquin and came home only on week ends. 
When he was away Granny was very hard to manage, 
and it was like being on a holiday to go up to the 
Lindsays’ and know you would not get scolded for a 
whole long day. 

“ ’Ere I am again, for a ’ole day’s fun,” she would 
exclaim, her face all radiant, and a whole day’s fun it 
certainly was, for Mitty was the gayest and brightest 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


138 

little soul in the world, and, as Mrs. Sutherland said, 
certainly did not know her place. Granny complained 
bitterly to the neighbours, but they all agreed that it was 
on the whole as beneficial to her as to Mitty, for she 
went about and looked after herself and was quite con- 
tented when there was no one there to see that she was 
not suffering. 

Ellen wrote brave letters that breathed the relief she 
felt at getting away. The prairies were wonderful, and 
her days were so full she had no time to think. She was 
staying with the people that worked Allister’s farm and 
they were so kind and good. Allister had given her a 
horse and she was going to learn to ride, only all the girls 
out here rode astride and it seemed so dreadful she did 
not think she could do it. Neil’s Mission Field was only 
a half-day’s journey away by rail, and she and Allister 
were going to see him and hear him preach. 

Sandy lauded Christina as he read Ellen’s letters, 
telling her again and again that there was no one like 
her and that she was just a corker, and that was all about 
it. And Christina glowed with happiness under his 
praise and grew fairly radiant over Ellen’s cheerfulness. 

“I’m not a bit more settled down than I ever was, re- 
member,” she warned Sandy. “You’ll see I’ll get away 
sometime yet, even if I have to get married to do it.” 

“Well, I hope you will,” said Sandy gloomily. “Don’t 
settle down and be an old maid whatever you do. You’re 
just the sort to do it.” 

“Why?” gasped Christina in alarm. She wondered if 
Sandy thought she was too plain ever to have a suitor. 

“Because you’ve always stayed around home doing the 
jobs that nobody else wanted to do,” declared Sandy. 

Christina gave a relieved laugh. “Something will hap- 
pen some day,” she promised. “Just see if it won’t.” 


THE WAR DRUM 


139 

She repeated the promise to herself many times as 
she went bravely about the kitchen and barnyard. 

“Something will happen some day!” But she often 
added, “But, oh, my, I do wish it would hurry up and 
happen soon.” 

And then something did happen; an event that vitally 
affected all Christina’s future. \ Something happened 
which made it unnecessary for any one to go far afield 
for adventure, for it brought the busy world of affairs, 
with its turmoil and sorrow and strife, right inside the 
green walls of Orchard Glen, Away on the other side 
of the world giant oppression suddenly arose to trample 
and slay, and freedom leaped up into a death struggle, 
and her voice rang round the world, calling on her sons 
to come to her aid. 

It was as peaceful an summer evening as could be, even 
in Orchard Glen, when the first faint echoes of that Call 
reached its quiet homes. The day had been very hot, and 
evening had come with her cool mantle of purple and gold, 
dew-spangled, and had spread it over the valley. Down 
in the river pasture the boys were playing foot-ball, and 
a dull thud came up the road like the distant boom of 
a cannon, could anything so incongruous come into the 
mind on such a peaceful evening? The store veranda had 
but few loungers, for the day had been a heavy one on 
the farms and was not yet over. The orchards grew 
pink and then purple in the evening light, the murmur 
of the water from the dam came up from the mill. 

And right into the midst of this calm and peace came 
the first note of the Great Strife. To those who thought 
about it afterwards, it seemed fitting that the news should 
have been brought by that warlike lady, Mrs. Johnnie 
Dunn. She was returning from a second trip to town 
that day, and though she liked to send her Ford whirl- 
ing through the village as a rebuke to idlers on the store 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


140 

veranda, this evening she slowed up and stopped with a 
grinding of brakes. 

“I say, Sam! Sam Holmes, 1 ” she cried excitedly, ig- 
noring the crowd on the steps, “I’ve got some news that’ll 
help spunk up some o’ these lazy lumps that’s clutterin’ 
up your front door here.” 

Trooper, who was one of the lumps, tried to efface 
himself behind Marmaduke, without success. The 
Woman was glaring right at him. 

“Well, well, now, Sarah,” said the peaceable Mr. 
Holmes, “what is it? Has anything gone wrong in 
town ?” 

“Gone wrong? Well I should rather say so! Some- 
thing that’ll make yous folks buy another pound or so 
o’ starch, when I tell you.” 

“Milk gone down?” guessed Marmaduke innocently. 
The Woman transferred the glare that belonged to her 
nephew upon his companions in wrong-doing. 

“It couldn’t go any lower than it is,” she affirmed 
sternly, “but it’s likely to go up, yes, and everything else, 
now ! No, sir, there’s goin’ to be a war, that’s what there 
is. They’re fightin’ right this minute over in Germany. 
The news about it was telegraphed up from Toronto to 
Algonquin and everybody says England’ll be in it, first 
thing.” 

A small ripple of amusement broke over the still, 
smoky surface of the the veranda. The Woman was 
always bringing home startling news and this was only 
one of many wild rumours. 

“I knew somethin’ dreadful would happen if you went 
to town again to-day,” muttered Trooper from his sanc- 
tuary behind the coal-oil barrel. “No wonder there’s a 
war.” 

“Well, well, now, I declare, is that true,” exclaimed 
Mr. Holmes, comfortably. “There’s always trouble in 


THE WAR DRUM 


141 

them Balkans. I suppose Germany has got to have her 
hand in it too. Them Balkans, now,” he continued with 
the splendid deliberation of one who was an authority 
on international affairs, “them Balkans,” he lit his pipe 
and gave a couple of puffs, “they’re nothing but a hot- 
bed of dissension and intrigue.” And having settled 
Eastern Europe to every one’s satisfaction, he threw 
away his match and smoked complacently. # 

“This ain’t no Balkan affair, let me tell you that,” 
cried The Woman, rather chagrined at the lack of 
excitement. “This is going to be a terrible war. It’ll 
be a reg’lar Army Geddin, and after that the end of the 
world. Folks was a sayin’ that in town to-day; it’s 
prophesied in the Bible; you can ask any of the min- 
isters and they’ll tell you. Here, Tom, come down here 
and crank up this machine o’ mine, I can’t hang round 
here no longer doin’ nothin’, war or no war.” 

Very gladly Trooper sprang down and gave the crank 
a whirl that set the car roaring away up the hill, speeded 
by a wave of his arms. The veranda settled down after 
the disturbance to talk about the weather and politics 
again. But Trooper was interested in the news his Aunt 
had brought. He had never been content on the little 
Ontario farm since the free days when he rode the plains, 
and soldiering would be a grand job. 

“Wonder if England’ll be into this?” he asked eagerly. 

“No danger,” answered Mr. Holmes, puffing author- 
itatively. “England don’t want to get into a war any 
more’n I do. And nobody’d dare to go to war with her, 
’count of her navy.” 

“There’s always some rumour about Germany makin’ 
a war,” said Old Tory Brown. “I don’t remember the 
time that it ain’t been talked about.” 

“There’ll never be any big kinda war no more, you 
may bank on that,” said the postmaster, seating himself 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


142 

on a nail keg. “Things is too much mixed up for that. 
Why, trade and commerce wouldn’t stand it for two 
days. The banks would all go busted and business would 
stop. And the world has got to a place when business 
means more than anything else. So there’ll not be much 
of a war. ’Course there will always be trouble in them 
Balkans, I suppose.” 

Trooper looked distinctly disappointed. “The Woman’s 
always getting up some storm that never comes to any- 
thing,” he said aggrievedly. “I thought she really meant 
it this time. Gosh, I wish there would be a real bang- 
up fight with guns shootin’ everywhere ! Wish the States 
would come over here or something and try to take 
Canada. But I guess there’s no such luck.” 

There were those who did not feel quite so secure as 
the Orchard Glen postmaster. There was very terrible 
news coming from Europe soon, news that a people 
brought up with liberty in the very air they breathed, 
could not at first comprehend. There came fearful tales, 
only half-credited as yet, of an iron nation gone mad 
with the lust of power, and of a free race being trampled 
in blood and ruin. The cry of Belgium was reaching 
to heaven, and a new spirit was beginning to stir in 
Canadian hearts, the spirit that takes no thought for trade 
or commerce, and counts gain as refuse. The new spirit, 
which is as old as the cry for freedom, was aroused, and 
all Canada was listening, breathless, for the Lion’s roar, 
the sound that would tell that that spirit had not perished 
from the heart of the British Nation. 

And then it came! That call that thundered round 
the world into every corner of the Empire, setting the 
hearts of her youth, whether they beat under palm or 
pine, aflame for the Great Cause ; and at its sound, Free- 
dom rose up once more from the blood-soaked soil of 


THE WAR DRUM 


143 

Flanders, and gave back, yet again, a challenge to the 
hordes of Tyranny. 

To Orchard Glen the first note of that call was a drum 
beat that came throbbing over the hills one summer even- 
ing, a drum beat that started in Old London. 

Christina had gone up the back lane with the cows in 
the evening, to see if the berries were ripe in the 
Slash. 

The Back Hill was very silent and lovely in the even- 
ing. Far below her lay her home fields; she could see 
John and Sandy hauling in their last load of alfalfa, with 
Jimmie perched on the top. She opened the bars into 
the back pasture and the stately herd trooped in, accord- 
ing to precedence. Cherry stepped back meekly until 
Plum walked ahead, for the cows were all well bred and 
knew their place. And Plum’s place was always at the 
head. She strolled in like some splendid duchess, her 
meeker sisters dropping behind. Christina laughed as she 
put up the bars. She always called Plum Mrs. Suther- 
land. She wondered if Wallace would be staying all 
Summer in Orchard Glen. She was thinking so much 
about him that she did not see some one coming up the 
opposite slope until a tall figure suddenly appeared on 
the other side of the fence. “Good evening, Christine,” 
said Gavin Grant. 

“Good night, Gavin,” called Christina. She was al- 
ways just a little bit flustered in Gavin’s presence. She 
was half afraid that he cared for her and just a little 
bit afraid that he did not care at all. 

“How is your haying?” she asked pleasantly. 

“Fine. I finished to-day. And I was just looking if 
these oats were ready. If the rain holds off I’ll cut them 
to-morrow.” 

“Did Auntie Janet help you?” asked Christina slyly. 

Gavin’s dark eyes twinkled. “No, she didn’t, but I had 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


144 

to give in and get Hughie Reid’s boys to help me, or she 
would have. I’m afraid I can’t manage her alone.” 

Christina was wondering how many young men she 
knew on the farms about would be so careful of three old 
women as Gavin was of his Aunts. Tilly Holmes said 
that Mrs. Sutherland waited upon Wallace hand and 
foot. But then one could not believe half the gossip 
Tilly repeated. 

She pulled a plume of the flaming fire-weed, a bright 
monument to some splendid forest monarch that had 
perished in the flames. 

“I like this flower, even if it is only a weed,” she said. 
Gavin smiled sympathetically. 

“I always like weeds best, but I daren’t tell my Aunties 
that,” he said. 

He was much more at his ease here up on the hills, 
and he looked very fine too, with the sleeves rolled back 
from his strong brown arms, and his bare head covered 
with thick wavy hair. If he wore the kind of clothes 
that Wallace Sutherland wore, Christina could not help 
thinking he would be quite as handsome. 

“I like weeds,” he was saying, “though they do give 
a great deal of trouble. This bind weed now. It is 
such a plague but I feel sorry every time I destroy it.” 

He pulled a long graceful branch with its exquisite 
pink blossoms and Christina put out her hand for it. 
And Gavin was emboldened to gather a little blossom 
of the blue jay and hand it to her shyly. He wanted to 
tell her that the fire-weed was like her cheeks and the 
blue jay like her eyes, but he could not. He knew 
Christina’s ambition, and he was too proud to play the 
lover when he was not wanted. 

But he walked by her side, across the Slash, and Chris- 
tina felt that old sense of happy companionship in his 
presence. The berries were fairly falling off the branches 


THE WAR DRUM 


H5 

in ripe luxuriance, and they filled the little pail she had 
brought in quite too short a time. Behind them the top 
of Craig-Ellachie stretched up to catch the last light of 
the setting sun. Her home fields spread out beneath ; the 
dusk laying its velvet cloak softly over them. The air 
was so still, the sound of the horses being driven to the 
water trough came up from the barnyard. 

And then there came across the rose-touched hills a 
new sound, the dull throb of a drum. 

“What is that?” asked Christina. 

They stood side by side and listened, looking in the 
direction of the town, where now the electric lights 
glowed against the sky. The sound came from the great 
outside world like the pulse beat of another life, the life 
into which Christina was longing to plunge. 

“Maybe it’s about the war,” said Gavin; he suddenly 
raised his head and his eyes grew bright. “Perhaps it 
means that England is in it.” 

“Oh,” Christina looked at him surprised. “It would 
be awful if the Old Country got into it,” she exclaimed. 
“Surely they won't.” 

“It would be worse if she did not,” said Gavin. “Think 
of Belgium.” 

“But what if they sent a Canadian contingent. I 
wouldn't like anybody I know to go to war.” 

Gavin made no reply. Christina wished he would say 
he would like to go. They stood for a little listening 
to the drum. And the girl had no slightest idea that to 
the young man the sound was as a bugle call. It was 
Gavin’s reveille, and it summoned him across the hills 
to come away. But ho knew he could not obey, and he 
stood silent saying no word of the tumult it raised in his 
heart. 

The next day the news that the drum had sent 
over the hills came to Orchard Glen. England was in 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


H< 

the war and she would in all probability call for a Cana- 
dian contingent. Indeed Algonquin had not waited to 
know, but was going to offer one herself whether the rest 
of Canada was loyal or not. And on the very day that 
Britain entered the Great War, this little obscure town, 
set far away north in a ring of forest and lake, was 
calling her sons to go over seas and help the Mother 
Land. And it was the sound of her drums that had 
penetrated to the hills of Orchard Glen and had set 
Gavin Grant’s heart throbbing in time to its beat. 

Mrs. Johnnie Dunn had gone into town that morning 
with her milk as usual, and on her return she went out to 
the hay field to see if her two underlings had been attend- 
ing to business in her absence. Marthy and Trooper Tom 
were good friends and they were not working so hard that 
they were unable to have a little friendly chat. The 
Woman bore down upon them. 

“Well, if ever there was a time when there should be 
no hangin’ round an’ palaverin’ that time is jist right 
now,” she declared. “What d’ye think’s the latest ?” 

The two men looked at her, Marthy undisturbed. 
Trooper alert and eager. 

“England’s into the war, that’s what! Yes, sir, and 
Sam Holmes didn’t keep her out of it neither. And 
they were enlistin’ fellows in Algonquin last night, an’ 
they say that Burke Wright — For the love o’ goodness, 
has the boy gone clean off his head?” 

“Sufferin’ Moses!” cried Marthy, standing with his 
fork suspended. 

For Trooper had turned his face to the heavens and 
uttered the ear-splitting war whoop that he had learned 
on the prairies. He threw his fork up into the air so 
that it turned a complete somersault, and came down 
and stuck neatly in the coil of hay, gave another whoop, 
and was off to the barn in wild leaps. 


THE WAR DRUM 


H7 

The two stood staring after him. “He didn’t get into 
a bees’ nest did he?” asked Marthy looking around in 
bewilderment. The Woman threw up her hands in sud- 
den enlightment. 

“I’ll bet, — I’ll bet he’s off!” she gasped. “He’s off to 
the war an’ the hayin’s hardly over, an’ the harvest jist 
cornin’ on! If that don’t beat ” 

But Trooper gave not a thought to either haying or 
harvest. He was in frantic haste lest he be too late for 
that fortunate band of recruits in Algonquin. What if 
they got off without him? What if the war should end 
before he got away? He dashed into the stable and 
flung the saddle upon his horse, fastening it with swift, 
feverish jerks, while the sympathetic animal watched him 
with eager eyes, quivering to be away. 

“Hooray, Polly!” he shouted as he swung over her 
back, “Hooray for Berlin!” 

He went thundering down the lane, roaring good-bye to 
the two, still standing, in the field, gazing open-mouthed. 
Then he went whirling down the road in a cloud of dust, 
waving his cap and shouting a joyous farewell to every- 
thing and everybody along the way. 

Joanna was at her gate looking up the street to see 
which of the Martin children had carried off her watering 
can, and Marmaduke had stopped to make love to her on 
his way home to dinner. They were standing laughing 
and joking when the wild horseman came thundering 
down the hill. 

Trooper shot past them, yelling something that neither 
understood and before they could recover from their 
amazement he had stormed past and was up over the hill 
with only the sharp rap of his horse’s hoofs to tell that 
it had not all been a vision. 

Joanna looked at Marmaduke in real concern. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


148 

He stood for a moment staring at the cloud of dust on 
the hill top, and then he suddenly slapped his knee. 

“He’s off to the war!” he shouted. “I bet Trooper’s 
off to enlist. He’s the very boy to do it. The Woman 
stopped here on her way home and said there was a Can- 
adian Army to be raised and they were recruitin’ in 
Algonquin last night. Yes, sir,” he ended up heavily. 
“I just bet you that’s what he’s up to.” He leaned 
.against the fence and suddenly looked old and weary. 

Joanna’s handsome face had turned white. She 
turned and without a word walked into the house steady 
and erect. And it takes some courage and resolution to 
walk so when your lover has just gone shouting to the 
wars without so much as a good-bye wave of the hand, 
because of the very joy of going! 

The next day Mitty was due for a day of fun at the 
Lindsays but she did not appear, and Christina ran down 
.as soon as she could get away, apprehensive that Granny 
was really ill again. She found the tidy little house in 
great disorder, with Mitty sitting on the edge of Granny’s 
bed, her face swollen with tears, while Granny sat up in 
bed rocking to and fro and bewailing her fate for a poor 
unfortunate buddy who should’a’ died years agone. 

“What has happened?” cried Christina in dismay. 
“Has Granny ” 

“B-b-Burke !” sobbed Mitty, " ’E-e’s a reservist.” 

“A what?” cried Christina in alarm. She had some 
vague idea that the steady, hard working Burke must 
have joined some sort of disreputable gang. 

“A— a reservist,” repeated Mitty between her sobs. 
“An’ they’ve sent for ’im an’ ’e’s goin’ to the war. An’ 
me an’ Granny’ll be left all alone !” 

“Do you mean he belongs to the army?” asked Chris- 
tina bewildered by this strange new thing which had 
come into their peaceful lives. 


THE WAR DRUM 


149 

Mitty nodded. “Burke was always a grite feller for 
the solderin’, an’ ’e joined wen ’e was only a bit o’ a lad. 
But ’e never feared after ’e come out ’ere as anybody 
would ever send for ’im. An’ now ’e’ll go to the wars an 
be shot down an’ we’ll be left without ’im.” 

This was really a terrible calamity, something so big 
one feared to face it, and Christina could only sit and 
hold Mitty’s hand. She was soon reinforced by the 
neighbours, many of whom had heard the sad news 
earlier, and had been in to console them. Dr. McGarry 
had already called twice to see Granny, though he had 
not been sent for, and he had left her some new 
powders. Mrs. Sutherland had brought over a little book 
of poems on Strength in Adversity. Tilly Holmes had 
brought a dozen oranges from the store, and Mrs. Sin- 
clair came in while Christina was there with a bowl of 
soup. 

Christina, mindful of her many duties at home, went 
back soon and sent her mother down, for Mrs. Lindsay 
was a wonder at bringing comfort and cheer. 

Mrs. Holmes was there, having come over to supple- 
ment the dozen oranges with a half-dozen bananas. 
Joanna had come over early in the morning and 
carried off Mitty’s ironing and was just returning 
with the basket filled with beautifully ironed clothes. 
Joanna hardly ever rejoiced with them that did rejoice, 
being rather of the opinion that they required a little 
wholesome adversity to temper their glee ; but her heart 
was very warm towards those who were in sorrow. And 
though she had never taken much interest in Mitty’s hap- 
piness, and had said many sarcastic things when Burke 
married her, still she was all sympathy with her in the 
day of her trial. 

“Now, just let’s cheer up and don’t worry about it at 
all,” she exclaimed bustling about with an air that was a 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


150 

real tonic. “Mitty, you just shut up your crying right 
now, and come and help me put away these clothes, or 
you’ll have to send Burke away in his night-shirt. He’ll 
never get to the war anyway. The British Navy’ll have 
Germany chased out of Europe long before he’ll get there 
and he’ll jist have a free trip to the Old Country and a 
chance to see all his old friends and visit his mother. 
Why, you ought to be glad !” 

“Now that’s jist right, Mitty,” declared Mrs. Holmes 
cheeringly. “Pa says the war can’t last any time. Busi- 
ness can’t stand it, and there ain’t so much to worry about 
after all.” 

Mrs. Lindsay came in with a cup of tea and cream for 
Granny, and the old lady was much refreshed and sat up 
and scolded Mitty well for crying so much. And Mitty 
pulled herself together and began to feel that perhaps 
life could go on even if Burke were away for a time. 
Granny’s scolding did her more good than all the neigh- 
bours’ sympathy. It was the atmosphere of normal times, 
and set her back into the sanity of every day surround- 
ings. 

And Mrs. Lindsay made a cup of tea for everybody and 
they all sat around Granny’s bed and sewed for Burke 
and mended everything and talked about the war in 
familiar terms, feeling that it had really come right home 
to them, and that Orchard Glen, with Trooper and Burke 
as representatives, had no small part to play. 

They talked about Belgium and Austria and Turkey 
just as though they were Dalton, Silver Creek and Algon- 
quin. It made them feel quite grand and important and 
gave something of a thrill as they spoke familiarly of 
those places and at the same time helped to get Burke 
Wright’s clothes ready to go away and fight the Ger- 
mans. 

“And how was it you and Joanna let Trooper go?” 


THE WAR DRUM 


151 

asked Mrs. Holmes of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn who had 
dropped in on her way from town, whither she had fol- 
lowed her impetuous warrior. 

“He didn’t wait to ask neither of us, I guess,” said 
The Woman. “Tom ain’t the fellow to ask anybody’s 
leave when there’s any fightin’ to do.” It appeared that 
though she would have died rather than admit it, Mrs. 
Johnnie Dunn was secretly proud of the way Trooper 
had gone off to the war, and would hear no adverse com- 
ments upon his conduct. Joanna made no reply to the 
raillery. These days were harder upon Joanna than upon 
Mitty, for she was denied even the luxury of grieving. 
But Trooper had not gone. He was still in Algonquin 
and would perhaps be home yet. And though her pride 
was badly hurt, Joanna had not at all given up hope. 


CHAPTER IX 


The Dream Knight 


ROOFER came tearing back to Orchard Glen, the 



A finest sight the place had ever seen, in a smart uni- 
form the colour of the dun fields he had forsaken so gaily. 
The day he burst upon the village there was such a crowd 
around him at the post office that it looked like election 
times and Dr. McGarry neglected his practice and fol- 
lowed him about. 

“Eh, if I was only ten years younger I’d be going 
with you, Trooper,” he cried enthusiastically. “Perhaps, 
I'll get there yet. There’ll be plenty more going over 
before this business is done. None of us has any idea 
what this war is going to be like, let me tell you.” 

“It’ll not last long,” declared Mr. Holmes, not so much 
from conviction as because that was the opinion he had 
given forth at first and he must adhere to it. Besides he 
and the Doctor were opposed in politics and religion, and 
they would naturally hardly agree about the war. 

Trooper continued to be the centre of attraction for 
the few days he spent at home before he was called to 
Valcartier. Though he was in the village for such a short 
time he found an opportunity to assist Marmaduke in a 
farewell piece of mischief, and though neither of them 
had any notion of involving Christina in their prank, 
she, quite accidentally, became one of the most inter- 
ested parties. 

The two village mischief-makers had long been hatch- 
ing a plot to get Wallace Sutherland away from his 


THE DREAM KNIGHT 


153 

mother and off with the girls. Trooper had promised the 
first one who would capture him and take him home with 
her to supper before he left, the biggest box of chocolates 
he could buy in Algonquin. 

Though Wallace Sutherland had been living quietly 
in Orchard Glen all summer, his prospects were much bet- 
ter than they had been on his return home. 

When Uncle William was in his most adverse mood, 
he had written a caustic letter hinting that he had grave 
doubts concerning Wallace’s ill health interfering with 
his examinations. And just that very week, a kindly fate 
intervened, and Wallace became really ill. Dr. Mc- 
Garry waited on him hand and foot, giving him every 
care possible, and at the same time declaring that it was 
nothing but too much to eat and too little to do that 
ailed the boy. 

When Uncle William heard, however, he really re- 
pented of his hard heart ; not very humbly, for that was 
not Uncle William’s way, but quite substantially, never- 
theless. He did not believe in agreeing with his adversary 
too quickly, so he wrote to his brother instead of to his 
nephew. He admitted that he might possibly have been 
too hasty with the young rascal, and he would give him 
one more chance, and only one. He might come back to 
the University at Christmas, and if he could take the sup- 
plemental examination that would be set for him, then, he 
could go on to the end of his course. Uncle William did 
not think it would be wise to let him return this coming 
Autumn, he ought to be kept in exile for a little while 
longer. And they would have to see that he studied;, 
make him sweat a bit over his failures and a few months 
up in that backwoods concession where Peter lived would 
be beneficial, it might induce meditation; there must be 
lots of quiet lying around loose in that forsaken region. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


*54 

And above all things they must try to knock it into his 
head that this was absolutely his last chance. 

Uncle William McGarry was one of those Canadians 
who, having made money in the great United States, 
was convinced that there was nothing good in Canada, 
since he had always been rather poor there. His attitude 
always nettled the Doctor who was a warm Britisher, and 
when he answered the letter there was more about the 
young men who were responding to the call of the Em- 
pire from this same back concession, than there was about 
the subject in hand. 

Nevertheless Wallace’s prophecy had come true, Uncle 
Will had recovered from his bilious attack. His con- 
valescence took rather longer than the young optimist had 
expected, but as his recovery seemed sure, there was noth- 
ing more to worry about except the intervening studies. 
He went at his lessons with a right good will, and then 
something happened that disturbed the even course of his 
life. And that was the prank that Trooper and Marma- 
duke played before the former went to the war. 

Christina had been to town. She had gone alone, on 
an errand for John, because Sandy and Jimmie were both 
very busy in the harvest fields. It was a very warm, 
dusty day and she let Dolly walk leisurely on the home- 
ward road. When she came to the village she stopped at 
the post office for the mail. 

She would not have confessed for the sake of a college 
course that she was wondering if there was any possibility 
of meeting Wallace Sutherland there. Christina could 
not have stooped to the little subterfuges the other girls 
practiced to waylay him at the corner, but none the less 
she could not help wishing that she might encounter him 
in some way that would attract his attention. He was 
always so pleasant when she met him, but he raised his 
hat to her and said, “Good afternoon, Miss Christine,” 


THE DREAM KNIGHT 


155 

in exactly the way he spoke to Tilly or Bell Brown or 
Maggie Blair. 

Marmaduke was sitting on the store veranda as she 
came up, and Trooper was leaning against the door-post, 
very smart and handsome in his uniform with his but- 
tons and his spurs all aglitter. Bell Brown and Maggie 
Blair were there as usual, and as Mrs. Holmes was not in 
the store there was a great deal of hilarity. 

Marmaduke, in his role of the village Lover, had been 
courting each of the girls in turn and immediately trans- 
ferred his affections the moment Christina appeared. 

“Hello, Christine !” he cried, “you don’t get down here 
as often as these other girls do ; and here I’ve been spend- 
in’ days jist waitin’ for a sight of you. I’ve been jist tliat 
lonesome for you, — will you think just the same of me if 
I go to the war?” 

“I’m sure even the war couldn’t make me change my 
opinion of you, Duke,” she answered with twinkling eyes. 
“Oh, Trooper!” she drew a long breath of admiration, 
“and you’re really and truly going to the war !” 

“You bet! Goin’ in cavalry too, so I can make a swift 
get-away when the Germans take after me !” 

“I’m thinkin’ of goin’ to the war myself,” said Marma- 
duke, who was trying to cover up his real grief under an 
unusually frivolous exterior, “I might as well go and get 
killed if none o’ yous girls ’ll look at me. Honest now, 
Christine, what would you take and go west with me next 
spring? Now that Trooper is leavin’ I’m not goin’ to 
hang round here any longer,” he added with a touch of 
real seriousness. 

“Well, I suppose I’d have to take my trunk, first of all,” 
said Christina, “and Grandpa and Mother — I couldn’t 
leave them.” 

“Pshaw,” giggled Tilly, “he was askin’ me that very 
same thing before yous girls came in, and I told him I’d 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


156 

take a gun so’s I could shoot myself when we got there. 
No letters for your folks to-day, Christine, but your 
fellow's letter don’t come till to-morrow anyhow,” she 
added with a giggle at her joke. 

“Oh, say girls,” whispered Bell Brown, “look who’s 
cornin’ 1” 

Wallace Sutherland was swinging down the street and 
came up the veranda steps in two graceful springs. 

“Hello, Tilly! Hello, young ladies!” he cried in the 
free gay manner that was the hope of the girls and the 
despair of his mother. He made a profound bow to 
Marmaduke. “And how is His Grace the Dook to-day? 
Hello, Trooper! Oh, say, don’t I wish I were going 
with you !” 

Marmaduke gave him a poke with his peg leg. Like 
every one else in Orchard Glen he liked Wallace. 

“And how is Lord Sutherland?” he asked in return, 
“I hear you’re gettin’ brain fag studyin’ the latest novels.” 

Wallace did not deign to notice this. “Miss Tilly,” he 
exclaimed, “I’m sure you’ve some letters for me away 
back there, now haven’t you?” 

Tilly flew to the little wicket and came tripping back 
with her hands full, her cheeks pink, her curls bobbing. 

“Just one for the Doctor, and one for your mother, 
and only papers for you,” she cried apologetically. 

He leaned over the counter, “Come now,” he said 
coaxingly, “are you quite sure you haven’t hidden mine 
away somewhere?” 

“She’s forgotten to write to you, I guess she’s got an- 
other fellow,” giggled Tilly. 

Christina turned towards the door. She wished with 
all her might that she could talk and joke with him as 
Tilly did, but even if she could there was no opportunity. 
He did not seem to notice she was there. 

“Come along, girls,” she said to Maggie and Bell, 


THE DREAM KNIGHT 


157 

“I'm going home and you can drive up the hill with me 
if you like.” 

Marmaduke, who had been in a hurried whispered 
conference with the two girls, rose and hobbled after 
them, the light of a great inspiration dancing in his eyes. 

Christina climbed into her old buggy as Wallace came 
out on the veranda followed closely by Tilly. 

“Look here, Christine,” cried Marmaduke, winking 
solemnly at her, “you're goin’ to get your neck broke one 
o' these days, drivin’ that mare, with the road full o’ cars. 
What does John mean lettin’ you?” 

“Dolly !” cried Christina in amazement, “why she 
wouldn’t — ” she caught a frantic warning wink from 
Trooper’s dancing eyes and paused. If the boys were 
playing some prank on Maggie and Bell it would be too 
bad of her to spoil it. 

“She’s dangerous, Christine,” put in Trooper, “I’ve 
seen her actin’ like a wild cat on the road. There was 
a girl killed the other day over in Grey County. Horse 
took fright at a Ford and ran away and busted every- 
thing !” 

“Mercy, me!” cried Bell Brown, who had her foot 
on the buggy step and now jumped back. “I wonder 
if there’ll be any cars coming along before we get home ?” 

“There’s a big car full o’ town folks visitin’ up at Mc- 
Kenzies due to be along here any min’it,” cried Marma- 
duke nervously. “You better stay here till it passes, 
Christine.” 

“Well,” said Christina, still doubtful of her part in the 
play, “if you’re scared to come with me girls, you needn’t, 
but I can’t wait — ” 

“Look here, Trooper,” cried Duke, “hop in there and 
drive them kids home. That car at McKenzies looks like 
a thrashin’ machine an’ that mare’ll go clean crazy. Here 
Christine, here’s Trooper, he’ll go with you.” 


i 5 8 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


“Oh, do come, Trooper,” cried Maggie Blair tremu- 
lously, “Christine’s a reckless driver and Dolly’s dread- 
ful with cars.” 

Christina sat looking on at the little comedy, laughing 
and wondering what its outcome was to be. 

Just then Mrs. Johnnie Dunn came honking home from 
town and stormed past the store. Dolly would not have 
so much as switched her tail and the little play all ar- 
ranged for Wallace Sutherland would have been spoiled 
had Trooper not come to its rescue. He gave a heroic 
leap to the mare’s head, clutching her bridle and shout- 
ing: 

“Whoa, Dolly, whoa now ! Whoa there !” Marmaduke 
joined him, calling on Christina to hold tight. The mild 
Dolly was really startled and jerked up her head and 
pranced about in a very realistic manner indeed, and it 
took some patting and coaxing to get her quieted. 

“Now, look at that, Christine !” cried Tilly, who was 
not in the play, and had screamed quite spontaneously. 

“Well,” cried Bell, coming forward nobly with her 
part, “that settles it for me. Trooper won’t come, he’s 
scared Joanna’ll see him, so I’m going to walk. You’ll 
have to risk it yourself, Christine.” 

“Aw, come along and drive us home, Trooper,” cried 
Maggie. “I’m just too tired to walk up the hill.” 

“Say, I would now, but I can’t leave here, girls. I 
was to meet Captain Morris here at five.” He turned as 
if with a sudden inspiration. “Here, now. Here’s Mr. 
Sutherland. Why don’t you ask him to drive you ? He’s 
the very fellow for the job. Can’t you drive these girls 
up the hill, Wallace? Here they are all scared to death, 
man.” 

“The very job for me!” cried Wallace gallantly. “I’ll 
drive you across Canada if you’ll let me, Miss Christine. 
Hop in girls. Is there room for us all?” 


THE DREAM KNIGHT 


*59 

For a moment Christina hesitated, a moment of weak- 
ness. She had suddenly seen through the joke. It was a 
plan to get Wallace to drive off with the girls right under 
his mother’s nose. She felt too deeply on the subject 
to take part in any such foolish jest. But she could not 
very well stop the impetuous young man who had 
scrambled into the buggy, and was now seated between 
her and Bell, while Maggie placed herself upon Bell’s 
knee. And while she hesitated he caught up the lines with 
a gay flourish. 

“Now, we’ll all likely be killed,” he cried. “But what’s 
the difference so long as we die happy!” And he gave 
Dolly a terrible lash with the whip and shouted, “Get 
along there, you.” 

Now in all Dolly’s quiet well-ordered life she had 
never felt anything but the gentlest encouragement from 
a whip, neither had anything in her memory ever pulled 
on her mouth in this dreadful manner. There was both 
terror and indignation in the leap she gave into the air, 
and the ignorant driver, taken quite unaware, pulled on 
one line so that the buggy was almost overturned. Then 
away they went at a gallop up the street, first on the edge 
of one ditch, then on the edge of the other, while the 
two plotters left on the veranda, ready to fall over with 
laughter, suddenly became sober as they saw a chance of 
their joke ending in a catastrophe. 

There was no feigning in Bell’s terror now. She had 
turned pale, and was crying out, “Oh, Christine, take the 
lines, take the lines!” 

But Christina needed no bidding. Already she had 
caught the reins in her strong brown hands, shoving the 
young man’s aside sharply. 

“You, you idiot!” was what she said, though she 
did not know it until afterwards. She was too angry to 
say more, too genuinely alarmed. With the firm familiar 


i6o 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


hand on the lines, and Christina’s voice calling soothingly, 
Dolly’s panic began to subside. She came down to a 
canter, then to a trot. 

“Well !” cried the young man in real amazement. “She. 
is some horse. How do you ever manage to drive her ?” 

Christina was too angry to answer yet. She could 
never bear to see any dumb animal hurt, and to have 
Dolly, her pet, struck — she could feel the lash of the whip 
across her own back and was tingling with indignation. 
And she was more deeply angry for another reason. She 
had divined by Wallace’s free manner that he understood 
just as well as any of the girls that this had all been a 
ruse to capture him and carry him off, and she felt en- 
raged that she had to lend herself to such a humiliation. 
She would show him that she was no party to the scheme 
by getting rid of him then and there. 

When she managed to get Dolly down to a walk she 
stopped her altogether just at the foot of the hill, and 
turned upon the young man with blazing eyes. 

“Why did you not tell me you didn’t know the first 
thing about driving a horse?” she demanded. 

Wallace Sutherland stared at her. To him Christina 
Lindsay was merely one of the village girls, whom he 
had gone to school with, in boyhood days, some of whom 
waylaid him at the post office to walk home with him and 
all of whom were anxious for his favour. But suddenly 
one of them had detached herself from the crowd and 
stood out alone and indignant, displaying vigorously the 
very opposite of admiration or a desire to please. 

“It was brutal to strike a poor animal like that,” she 
continued, still smarting for Dolly and for her own self 
respect. 

Wallace felt the blood rise to his face. He remem- 
bered that she had called him an idiot. “I suppose you 
are waiting for me to get out?” he replied stiffly. For 


THE DREAM KNIGHT 


161 


answer Christina turned her horse’s head, and the wheel 
moved aside invitingly for him to alight. Maggie and 
Bell broke into a duet of apologies and protestations. 

“Oh, Mr. Wallace, don’t go ! Why Christine, how can 
you act like that ? He didn’t know Dolly was going to be 
so wild !” But Christina was feeling more for herself 
than for Dolly and was inexorable. Wallace jumped out, 
and raised his hat stiffly. But she did not even glance at 
him, and drove away quickly up the hill. 

“Don’t you girls know that he’s just making fun of 
us?” she cried hotly. “He knew just as well as you did 
that it was all a put up job, and he was a big, stupid, cruel 
thing to hit Dolly that way, so now.” Christina exper- 
ienced a fierce relief to her outraged pride in thus being 
able to revile him. 

Maggie Blair was always inclined to be dominated by 
Christina, and she looked ashamed. What if her mother 
were to discover what she had been doing? But Bell 
was inclined to argue the matter, and the drive up the 
hill was anything but pleasant. However, neither of the 
girls was very much disturbed. Christina had made her- 
self obnoxious forever to Wallace Sutherland, while he 
would think none the less of them for being full of fun. 

This was the thought uppermost in poor Christina’s 
mind also, when she reached home and her anger cooled 
leaving only shame and regret. She had behaved rudely, 
— oh, abominably, — to the one person whom above all 
others she wished to please. He would despise her and 
never look at her again. If she had only acted with 
dignity, but she had called him an idiot ! She was over- 
whelmed with shame when she remembered that. 

She longed for the advice of Ellen or even Mary and 
she confided her troubles to her mother in the evening as 
they sat sewing on the veranda. 

“Well, well,” her mother said comfortingly, not dream- 


162 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


ing how badly Christina was hurt, “indeed I would rather 
you acted as you did, than to be taking part in such 
norms. But I think you would be rather hard on the 
lad because he did not know how to drive.” 

It was poor comfort when your heart was broken, when 
your Dream Knight had actually sat by your side and 
ridden with you and you had treated him as though he 
were a kitchen knave. The only crumb of comfort Chris- 
tina had was that which her pride provided. At least 
Wallace would never dream that she had been silly 
enough to set him up on a pedestal, dream about him at 
night, and watch for him by day. But it was a very small 
and cheerless comfort in a whole world of misery. 

But the result of her outrageous conduct towards the 
village hero was totally unlooked for. Wallace became 
very much interested in this spunky Lindsay girl. She 
was different from the other girls, the one reproving 
thorn in a field of admiring roses. That alone made her 
rather refreshing. Then he did not like to have a nice 
girl angry with him. He was a warm-hearted, easy 
going lad, who disliked opposition and disfavour and 
would do much to please any one. He was genuinely 
sorry, too, that he had hurt Dolly, for he was the opposite 
of cruel by nature. 

So the very next evening when he saw Christina and 
Sandy pass on their way to that weekly function, Choir 
Practice, he remembered that the gathering was to be a 
sort of farewell to Trooper, and with this excuse he sud- 
denly announced that he thought he would go. 

“Of course you’ll go,” cried his uncle heartily. “We 
can’t do honour enough to the boys that are going over- 
seas to give their lives for us. I’d like to go, too ! I’ll 
drop in when I get back from my trip to Dalton.” 

So Wallace went off and was welcomed warmly by 


THE DREAM KNIGHT 163 

Tremendous K. and put in the bass row where Marma- 
duke and Trooper were sitting. 

“You didn’t seem to be able to keep up with that runa- 
way horse, yesterday/’ said Marmaduke. 

“I’d like to hammer the two of you jokers for putting 
up a job like that on me/’ Wallace said good-naturedly. 

“Don’t do anything to me,” pleaded Duke, “Christina’s 
been lookin’ at me like a buzz saw all evenin’.” 

“I’ll bet she wasn’t in it,” cried Wallace, suddenly 
anxious that Christina should be vindicated. 

“No, she wasn’t,” admitted Trooper. “And I notice 
she didn’t let you stay in it long either,” he added with a 
grin. 

“You got let down by one of the girls that time all 
right,” boasted Marmaduke. “You’ll find out you can’t 
get too gay with a Lindsay.” 

Wallace felt put upon his mettle immediately. He 
would show them that even as outspoken and independent 
a young lady as Miss Christina Lindsay was not likely to 
continue her opposition long. He felt a keen delight 
in the thought of his victory. 

Tremendous K. called them sharply to order and the 
business of singing through an anthem for Sunday was 
finished hastily, and the real business of the evening, 
a farewell to Trooper, was taken up. They had col- 
lected enough money to give him a wrist watch, the 
older women of the church had knit him a half dozen 
pairs of socks, and there was a farewell address which 
had been prepared by Mr. Sinclair expressing very feebly 
a little of what the community felt at the departure of 
their gay and gallant young rider of the plains. 

When it was all over, Gavin Grant watched for 
Christina. She had been so kind and friendly every time 
he had seen her lately, especially when they met, as they 
sometimes did, up on the hills, that he was beginning to 


164 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

wonder if he might not once more put his fortune to the 
test. 

He waited for her outside the open door ; she came out, 
looking about anxiously for some girls going in her di- 
rection, when to Gavin’s dismay, Wallace Sutherland 
stepped to her side, and leaging over he whispered some- 
thing. And then they walked away side by side up the 
hill. 

But Gavin’s distress was nothing to the feeling of Mag- 
gie and Bell. This seemed incredible after the way Chris- 
tina had acted. She had called him an idiot, and literally 
turned him out of her buggy, and yet, here he was seeing 
her home the very next morning! Truly no one could 
tell what was the best way to treat a young man ! 

Meanwhile Christina’s amazement knew no bounds. 
Wallace went straight to the point. 

“I want to apologise. Miss Christine,” he said humbly, 
“I know now why you were so angry and I don’t blame 
you a bit. It was all Marmaduke’s nonsense and I 
shouldn’t have joined it.” 

“Oh, it’s I who ought to apologise !” cried Christina in 
a rush of gratitude. “I was dreadfully rude, but I wanted 
you to know it wasn’t really you I was angry with, but 
with the girls and Marmaduke.” 

“Well you hid your feelings pretty well,” he said rue- 
fully, and then they both laughed. 

“You see I really don’t know much about a horse,” he 
confessed hurriedly. “A car is a different proposition. I 
thought that using the whip was the same as turning on 
the gasoline and I didn’t expect such an explosion.” 

“I am afraid that I was the one that was guilty of the 
explosion,” said Christina contritely, and they grew very 
friendly over their mutual apologies. Wallace had ex- 
pected that a reconciliation would have been a difficult 
matter. He was not the sort to be sorry that it was not. 


THE DREAM KNIGHT 


165 

He was very happy to find that, after all, this tall, frank 
girl, who held herself aloof from the doings at the corner, 
was inclined to look upon him with friendliness in her 
bright eyes. He very much enjoyed apologising to her 
and kept on doing it after they had reached her home, 
and they stood together in the moonlight listening to the 
soft whisper of the leaves in the poplar trees at Chris- 
tina’s gate. 

Of course every one noticed that Wallace Sutherland 
had gone home with Christina Lindsay, and so much com- 
ment did this cause that the fact that Trooper and Joanna 
walked away together very slowly did not attract much 
attention. It was probably the last time. Joanna’s 
spirits had left her. She could not find the strength to 
pretend any longer. She was silent and miserable on the 
way home and Trooper was silent too. This last leave 
was a trying experience. He might never come back, 
might never see Joanna’s handsome face again, and, after 
all, no one would care so much if he were killed as 
Joanna. And so they hung over the gate long after her 
father had gone to bed, and finally when Trooper tore 
himself away, he whispered, “Now, not a minute later 
than four o’clock,” and Joanna answered, “Do you sup- 
pose I could forget?” 

Mark Falls always rose at six o’clock, called his daugh- 
ter and went into the blacksmith shop returning at seven 
for his breakfast. He followed the usual rule the next 
morning but when he returned, Joanna had no breakfast 
ready for him. There was a cold lunch set out on the 
table but there was no fire in the kitchen stove and no tea 
made. He was a rather cross-grained man but he knew 
it was never safe to antagonise his daughter and so he 
called rather mildly up-stairs, “Hi, there Joan, you ain’t 
sick are you ?” but Joanna did not answer and he mounted 
the stairs slowly grumbling about the young folk who 


i66 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


would never go to bed at night and never get up till mid- 
day, and then he stopped in the middle of Joanna’s open 
door. The bed was made and the room was in its usual 
spotless order, but there was no sign of its owner. And 
then he noticed a note pinned to the pillow with his name 
on it. He tore it open in dismayed haste. Mark Falls 
had always had the idea that Joanna would run away 
some day, perhaps because she was always threatening to 
do it. His mind worked rather slowly and he had scarcely 
time to formulate his fears when he had read the note. 

Dear Pa, There’s mush on the back of the stove and 
you can warm it up for yourself. Mitty will likely 
come over and get your meals till I come back. I guess I 
will be back on Friday. Trooper and I are going in to 
Algonquin to get married before he goes away. You 
don’t need to make a fuss for if you do there is no great 
cause for to stay home at all. Joanna.” 

Mark Falls merely grunted. It was always what he 
expected of Joan, he declared, she was flighty like her 
mother. 

He sat down morosely to his breakfast. The mush 
was not very good when it was warmed up. He felt sure 
that Mitty would never cook things as he liked them. 
By the time he had finished his unpalatable breakfast he 
decided that he would act upon Joanna’s hint and make 
no fuss when she returned. Whatever his daughter’s 
temper, there was no doubt she could make the kind of 
meals a man could eat. 


CHAPTER X 


Called to the Colours 

F OR some time after the first stir of Burke’s and 
Trooper’s departure, the war occupied all minds. 
The first shock of German brutality was shaking civilisa- 
tion, and people were trying to readjust themselves to 
living back in the . days of barbarity. Mr. Holmes was 
compelled each day to contradict the prophecies he had 
made the day before until he became quite discouraged, 
and the groups that met every day at the store to wait for 
the daily papers which the Doctor and Mr. Sinclair took, 
began to have their long-established faith in his opinions 
rather disturbed. 

For even if the Germans had not succeeded in persuad- 
ing the postmaster that he was wrong Dr. McGarry 
would have done so. The Doctor was a tremendously 
loyal Briton and these disastrous days were hard on his 
temper. People were afraid to ask him how the war was 
going, when he opened the newspaper, for if it were bad 
woe betide the questioner. The reverses of the Allies 
were nearly breaking his big heart and he had to vent his 
grief and wrath on somebody. He railed at Britain for 
being unprepared, he stormed at the United States for 
their neutrality, and he denounced Canada for being so 
slow, and always ended up by declaring that Germany 
would win and wishing with all his heart that, instead of 
being sixty, he were Trooper’s age and were riding with 
him in the Princess Pats. 


167 


i68 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


This sort of talk made an uncomfortable home atmos- 
phere for young Wallace, who had no desires to be up 
and away from the comfortable fire-side and all the 
pleasant surroundings of Orchard Glen, and just now 
his environment, with Christina Lindsay’s bright eyes to 
welcome him wherever he went, was pleasanter than he 
had ever dreamed it could be. 

But if the Doctor’s fiery patriotism did not greatly dis- 
turb his nephew, it made life quite miserable for his sis- 
ter. Indeed the poor lady had more troubles in these 
days than many a mother who had sent her son to the 
Front. 

The thing she had most feared had come upon her; 
namely that Wallace should take up in the vulgar country 
fashion with one of the young women of the village. She 
had to confess to herself that of all the Orchard Glen 
girls the Lindsays were perhaps the least objectionable, 
and Christina’s manner seemed always quiet and well 
bred. But at best the case was very dreadful. Suppose 
Wallace became infatuated, and Wallace had a habit of 
doing that, what might not happen ? He might even want 
to settle down on a farm here and be married, and he with 
all Uncle William’s wealth at his disposal if he would 
only make proper use of his opportunities ! 

There was just one fate that would be worse than 
remaining ih Orchard Glen, Wallace might take a notion 
to enlist, and his Uncle’s outbursts of temper were suf- 
ficient to drive the boy to do anything desperate. 

She sat herself with all her might to the task of making 
him study hard, so that he would be ready to go back to 
college in the States and be away from all the tempta- 
tions of both Christina and the war. But making Wallace 
study was a heavy task, especially now with his infatua- 
tion for the Lindsay girl growing stronger every day. 

He was off almost every night with the village rabble. 


CALLED TO THE COLOURS 


169 

He joined the Presbyterian choir, and the Temperance 
Society, and went to Bible Class every Sunday afternoon. 
And the time that was left from these engagements, she 
suspected, he spent at the Lindsay farm. 

Indeed her mind was not at rest concerning him even 
during the hours when he was supposed to be under the 
tutelage of Mr. Sinclair, though Miss Margaret was away. 
No one knew what Mr. Sinclair would do with a young 
man who came under his influence. Mrs. Sutherland 
wanted Wallace to be a good boy, of course, she con- 
fessed with tears in her eyes, and she trusted he would 
always be religious and go to church as she had taught 
him, but Mr. Sinclair never seemed to know where to stop 
in matters of religion, and might spoil all the worldly 
prospects of a young man like Wallace. There was that 
young Neil Lindsay. Her brother always said that he was 
the brightest young man that Orchard Glen had ever sent 
out, and that he would make his mark in the world, and 
Mr. Sinclair had spread his blighting influence over him 
and now he was studying to be a minister and would 
likely go away off into some dreadful heathen country 
and never be heard of again. And indeed Orchard Glen 
could furnish many another instance of his undoing a 
promising career. And who knew what he might do with 
Wallace? Of course ministers existed for the purpose of 
seeing that wayward sons kept in the path of rectitude, 
but they ought to know there should be temperance in 
all things. For while Mrs. Sutherland wanted her son 
to have sufficient religion to keep him from going wrong 
and doing anything disgraceful, she certainly did not want 
him to have so much that it would interfere with his get- 
ting on in the world. And Mr. Sinclair seemed to have 
no notion that getting on in the world mattered at all. 

Wallace continued to be as gay and good-natured as 
ever in the face of his mother’s tears and his uncle’s 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


170 

temper. He would pull her ear playfully when she ad- 
monished him, and when Uncle Peter grew cross and 
grumpy he would go off whistling up the hill to the Lind- 
say farm. 

As for Christina her golden dreams had all come true. 
She had at last obtained that one great requisite to hap- 
piness, a special cavalier of her own, to wait upon her and 
do her bidding. There was no more slipping home alone 
forlornly from meetings, no more coaxing John to take 
her to picnic or concert, no. more fear of Gavin Grant 
seeing her home. And not only was her cavalier always 
at her side on these occasions, but he was the beau ideal 
of all the girls in Orchard Glen, as Christina was the 
envy. Her sweetheart was young and handsome and gal- 
lant and gay, indeed the very Dream Knight who had 
lingered so long just beyond the horizon and had ridden 
at last up to her door. 

Mary wrote her delight in Christina’s good fortune, 
hinting just a little surprise that she should have won a 
prize where Mary herself had failed. Ellen wrote cau- 
tioning her sister not to set her heart on any one for the 
present. Wallace was young and they would likely be 
parted, and people saved themselves a great deal of pain 
if they did not make plans for the future. 

Christina was too busy to think much of the future, the 
present was quite sufficient. For besides all the joyous 
social events and home duties, like all the other women 
of the village she was called upon to take up the burden 
of Red Cross work. 

The Red Cross Society proved as great a blessing in 
the divided ranks of Orchard Glen society, as it did on 
many another field of battle. It provided a place where 
the Methodists and Presbyterians could-meet on common 
ground and it was wonderful to see the gradual drawing 
together of the forces that had been rent asunder by the 


CALLED TO THE COLOURS 


171 

skirl of old Lauchie’s bagpipes. It was very heartening 
to see Mrs. Henderson, Tremendous K/s wife, and Mrs. 
Johnnie Brown, the wife of the Methodist Sunday School 
Superintendent working side by side. It was impossible 
to keep from speaking when you were sewing on the same 
hospital shirt and gradually people began to forget that 
there were Methodists and Presbyterians in the world, 
remembering only that there were Germany and the Allies. 
And when Tremendous K. was asked by the Red Cross 
Society to get up a concert that winter to raise Red Cross 
funds, Methodists and Baptists came flocking back to the 
choir and they all sang, “O, Canada” and “IBs a Long 
Way to Tipperary,” together as though there had never 
been a piper in Orchard Glen. 

But these harmonious heights were not reached with- 
out many a rocky bit of road for the Red Cross Society 
to travel. 

When the Society was formed, a number of women 
came out from Algonquin to organise, though Mrs. 
Johnnie Dunn did not see why in common sense they 
couldn’t form a society themselves without a lot of women 
from town trolloping out to show them how to do some- 
thing they all knew how to do already. Nevertheless the 
ladies from town came and they organised centres in 
Dalton and Greenwood and Orchard Glen and in other 
places all through the country. 

The Orchard Glen Red Cross Society was to meet once 
a week in the basement of the Methodist Church, it being 
the largest available space in the village. 

Mrs. Sutherland was made President and Mrs. Sin- 
clair Treasurer; and young Mrs. Martin was Secretary, 
with Christina Lindsay to assist and take the minutes 
when the children were so bad that nobody could man- 
age them. There was a large executive committee be- 
sides, but all these officiajs were quite irrelevant, for 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


172 

Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was the real head and body and limbs 
of the society, and looked after all its business. 

Then The Woman brought out the materials for sew- 
ing and knitting from Algonquin, and returned the gar- 
ments when she thought they ought to be finished, and 
woe betide the unlucky Red Cross worker who was be- 
hind a day with a shirt or a pair of socks! For she 
decreed just how much was to be done each week, and no 
Prussian Militarist ever ruled with so high a hand. 

“Just add another roll o’ towelling to that order,” she 
would command the Algonquin woman who was handing 
out her month’s work, “there’s a lot o’ lazy lumps out at 
our corner that’s sittin’ pickin’ their fingers for want o’ 
somethin’ to do.” 

The Society followed The Woman and the President 
was left far in the rear. Indeed Orchard Glen was rather 
proud of Mrs. Johnnie Dunn. She was so clever and 
made such a name for them in Red Cross circles. The 
valentine episode was forgotten with other pre-war 
trivialities and she was reinstated in her old place of 
leadership. 

Mrs. Sutherland presided at all Red Cross meetings 
with something of the air of a Queen ruling a. much 
limited monarchy, over which a strenuous and efficient 
Prime Minister is wielding unlimited power. It was an 
unpleasant position and the rightful monarch might have 
made efforts to retain her authority but for the ambas- 
sador who kept peace between the Queen and the Prime 
Minister. The peacemaker was the last woman in Orchard 
Glen to be chosen for such a task, and yet a real peace- 
maker Joanna proved herself. 

Joanna Falls would never have filled the position, but 
Joanna Boyd, as every one was discovering, was a new 
creature. She came back from her brief trip with 
Trooper, when the first contingent left for England. 


CALLED TO THE COLOURS 


173 

She had a wedding ring on her hand and a new light in 
her handsome eyes. And she was so gentle and kindly 
that those who did not stop to remember that love works 
miracles scarcely knew her. 

She became Mrs. Sutherland’s life-long friend on the 
very day the Red Cross Society was formed. It was after 
the meeting and people were standing about asking ques- 
tions and delivering opinions, Mrs. Sutherland was still 
sitting on the platform with the visitors from town and 
called Joanna to her. 

“Mrs. Boyd, my dear,” she said pleasantly, “will you 
come here a moment ?” 

Joanna looked around in a moment’s bewilderment, 
wondering who Mrs. Boyd was, and then the girls all 
laughed, and she remembered, and, blushing and look- 
ing very beautiful, she obeyed. Mrs. Sutherland intro- 
duced her as “Our war bride,” and told how Trooper had 
gone away at the first call of his country. And the 
visitors asked her all about him, and Joanna, with tears 
in her handsome eyes, told how he was in the Princess 
Pats and expected to be in the fighting any day now. It 
was so wonderful to be able to talk about Trooper and 
speak out her grief without shame, that Joanna’s voice 
grew very soft and her manner gentle. And a lady whose 
only son had also ridden away in the Princess Patricias’ 
patted her hand and said it was the women who stayed at 
home who needed to be brave and that she had many 
to sympathise with her. 

From that day Joanna became Mrs. Sutherland’s right 
hand, she was always ready to do her bidding. Mrs. 
Sutherland would call across the room full of shirts and 
towels and whirring machines, “Mrs. Boyd, my dear, 
could you find me the back of this shirt ? I must have mis- 
laid it.” And Joanna would run and wait on her hand 


174 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


and foot, Joanna who used to throw the dishwater so it 
would splash over into Mrs. Sutherland’s yard ! 

And another miracle caused by Trooper’s going to the 
war was the friendship that sprang up between Joanna 
and The Woman. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was a warrior at 
heart herself, and Trooper’s leap to the first sound of the 
bugle thrilled her. She would have parted with a year’s 
profits on milk before she would confess this, but she 
was really inordinately proud of her soldier and her feel- 
ings were displayed in her treatment of him. He had 
enough socks to foot every man in the Princess Patricias 
and there was never a soldier in the Canadian Army re- 
ceived such boxes of cake and candy as Trooper. 

So his wife and his aunt became firm friends in their 
common love and pride. They sat together at sewing 
meetings, sharing scraps of each other’s letters and the 
latest bit of news concerning the Princess Pats. 

But Joanna had no easy task keeping peace in the 
Red Cross Society. The course of that blessed institution 
ran over a rough bed of rocks from the day of its incep- 
tion. 

There were a deal of rules about the fashioning of shirt 
collars and the hemming of sheets and the sewing on of 
buttons and the folding of bandages which The Woman 
characterised as tomfoolery. The President was for 
keeping the rules. She believed in system, she stated in 
her address to the Society, but Mrs. Johnnie Dunn be- 
lieved only in her own system, and told every one to go 
ahead and do things the way they had always done and 
they’d be all right. 

Then there was the knitting! Granny Minns, who 
could turn out her sock a day, and not omit a tittle of 
Mitty’s scolding, said the Kitchener Toe was all hum- 
bug. She had knit for her son Tom all his life and her 
husband too, and was now knitting for Burke. And 


CALLED TO THE COLOURS 


175 

Burke said her socks were just right, and what was good 
enough for Burke was good enough for the other sol- 
diers ! 

She had an army of followers who were ready to sec- 
ond all she said. Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls and 
Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.’s mother were all super- 
excellent knitters, and Mrs. Brown who was no more 
afraid of Mrs. Sutherland than The Woman was, said 
right out in the meeting that the Kitchener Toe was jist 
some norms got up by the women in the town who hadn’t 
enough to do, and had never learned to knit, anyhow! 
And Mrs. Brown and Tremendous K.’s wife took to walk- 
ing home together after the meetings, just to discuss the 
foolish fashions of some women like Mrs. Sutherland ! 

Mrs. Sinclair asked for one of the leaders to come 
out from town and tell about the Kitchener Toe. The 
lady came and they had an extra meeting in the basement 
of the Methodist church, and passed around tea and cake 
and pie afterward. The lady spoke of the horrors of 
Trench Feet, and showed how the wrong sort of knitting 
would be sure to produce it. But as Granny Minns never 
went anywhere, and Mrs. Lindsay and the Grant Girls 
went only to church, and Mrs. Brown was too deaf to 
hear, and Mrs. Tremendous K. told her it was just all 
dishwater anyway, the talk had very little effect. 

So a secret society was formed, of which Joanna and 
Mrs. Sutherland were the leaders. They met at night 
with drawn blinds and locked doors, and ripped out the 
uneven and condemned knitting and knit it up again. 
And before long Orchard Glen was mentioned in the 
Algonquin papers as the one place that always sent in 
perfect socks. And a photographer came out from town 
and took a picture of Granny Minns, as the oldest knitter 
of faultless socks, and it was put in the paper and Orchard 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


176 

Glen was held up as an example for the countryside and 
was the envy of the whole knitting public. 

The excitement over Red Cross troubles during the 
winter almost made folk forget the war. The terrible 
onrush of the enemy had been stopped at the Marne, and, 
lulled by an over-censored press, the public settled down 
to the belief that when the Spring came the Germans 
wPuld be forced back across the Rhine and the war would 
be over. Britain was safe anyway, every one knew that. 
For there was the Navy and that, as every one knew, 
was invincible. 

The first contingent had gone ; English and Scottish re- 
servists like Burke had left, and many another Old Coun- 
try man had volunteered, going back to give the old land 
a helping hand. Then there were the gay lads full of ad- 
venture like Trooper, up and away at the first glad chance 
of looking into “the bright face of danger,” and some seri- 
ous minded ones also, knowing that a terrible danger 
menaced humanity and they must stand as a wall between. 
But the great mass of young Canada was as yet undis- 
turbed, and while the press could have called them with 
one bugle sound, the press sent them back to their work 
and their play, and so they lingered undisturbed. 

Wallace had to part with Christina at Christmas time, a 
consummation that had been devoutly looked forward 
to by his mother. He left her with many promises to 
write and to be home for Easter. Christina had scarcely 
time to miss him for Sandy and Neil came home and 
Mary and Hugh McGillivray came up from Port Stewart 
and the house rang with the good times they all had to- 
gether. And Grandpa could scarcely be persuaded to go 
to bed lest he miss some of Jimmie's and Sandy's antics. 

On Christmas day a letter came from the two absent 
ones. They were invited to take dinner with some friends 
in Prairie Park, people who had heard Neil preach when 


CALLED TO THE COLOURS 177 

he was in the west, and they declared he would be one of 
Canada's leading preachers some day. 

Allister wrote a longer letter than usual to Christina. 
There was an entirely new note in it. 

“This war has knocked things endways for me I’m 
afraid,” he said. “You needn’t say anything to John or 
the boys yet, but if everything keeps rolling down hill 
as fast as it’s been going there will be no college for any 
one next year. So perhaps you were just as wise to 
stay home. I didn’t know just how good you were to 
let Ellen come till she told me all about it. It’s been rough 
on Ellen and you’ve been a brick to let her come. But 
if things don’t get too rotten we’ll win out yet and make 
the world sit up and take notice. Ellen’s got the craze 
to go nursing and she wants to start right away. Only 
she thinks she ought to go home. If she trains maybe 
she’ll be going overseas if this war doesn’t show some 
signs of ending.” 

It was not at all like Allister, and Christina was filled 
with anxiety. What if Sandy and Neil had to be stopped 
in their college course ? And Allister had furnished many 
a comfort on the farm that made life easier for them all 
and especially for John and had hinted that there might 
be a car in the Spring. If his money all went with 
the war, there would be never again any chance for her. 
But she did not worry over herself, only wrote to Ellen 
urging her to take her nurse’s course by all means, for 
everything was quite all right at home. 

When the pleasant rush of Christmas was over she was 
rather surprised to find that life was not so dull as she 
had expected. She missed Wallace, but not quite so much 
as she felt she should. She grew impatient with herself 
and began to wonder if she were different from other 
girls. Mary lived for Hugh, and Ellen’s days had ar- 
ranged themselves around Bruce’s coming and going, and 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


178 

she could not but ask why she was not as joyous over 
Wallace’s preference for her as she had expected to be. 

When he was away from her he seemed to be her very 
ideal Knight, so handsome and brave and good, but 
when he was in her presence, he was just a very ordinary, 
pleasant young man, with no halo of romance about him. 
She was rather disappointed in herself. She wondered 
if she were of a dissatisfied nature whom nothing could 
please. 

And then she had no sooner settled down to a lonely 
winter than suddenly Wallace came back. He came up 
to see her on the very evening of his return, to explain 
his sudden appearance and tell her all the tragic sum of 
his experiences. 

It appeared that his hopes were all blasted; his 
uncle had behaved in a shameful manner. In spite of 
the fact that Wallace had almost studied himself ill all 
Fall, Uncle William simply refused to let him go back 
to college. 

“But your examination!” cried Christina in dismay. 
“You passed that, didn’t you?” 

Wallace had neglected to explain about the exami- 
nation. One paper, the Latin prose, was quite beyond 
belief. The man who set it was crooked, there was no 
doubt about it, and anyway Wallace had always felt 
that Mr. Sinclair was very old-fashioned in his methods. 
A fellow just couldn’t learn under him. 

Christina’s heart was striving to excuse him, de- 
claring that he had been ill-used, while her head was 
protesting that he was only a spoiled boy who had wasted 
his opportunities, and was now ready to lay the blame 
at any door but his own. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she declared with real sympathy. 
“And what will you do now?” 

“I think I’ll enlist,” he declared despondently, sinking 


179 


CALLED TO THE COLOURS 

down into the depths of the soft couch, one of the com- 
forts that Allister’s money had made possible. “There 
isn’t anything else for me to do. I’ve had such rotten 
luck.” 

He glanced at Christina as he spoke and was rather 
disconcerted to see that she made no opposition. His 
mother always wept and wrung her hands, and made 
any concession at the merest suggestion of his going to 
the Front, and he had supposed that Christina would, at 
least, show some agitation. 

But instead there came a sudden light into her eyes. 

“Oh,” she declared, “it must be grand to be a man 
and go away and fight for freedom!” 

Wallace raised his head and stared at her. 

“I don’t believe you’d care a mite if I were killed !” he 
cried reproachfully. 

Christina’s eyes dropped to the grey sock she was 
knitting. 

“Oh, I — I didn’t mean that !” she cried apologetically. 
“I — I just thought maybe you wanted to go.” 

“I can’t leave mother,” he declared, “that’s one sure 
thing. And another is that I’m going to give up the 
University. I never wanted to go anyway. I think I’ll 
go into business, or perhaps I’ll farm. I’m going to 
stay home for a week or so anyway and talk things 
over with Uncle Peter.” 

He seemed to forget his troubles after this resolution 
and became his old gay self, and Christina’s head gave 
way to her heart and and she was altogether happy that 
he had come home. 

But there was not much happiness or comfort in the 
red house with the pillars. Dr. McGarry had helped his 
sister indulge their boy and now he was angry with him 
for turning out the exact product to be expected from 
their indulgence. The Doctor stormed and scolded and 


180 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

Mrs. Sutherland wept. Wallace threatened to enlist. 
Uncle Peter said it was the best thing he could do and 
then, when things were really getting quite intolerable 
and Wallace was packing his trunk for parts unspecified, 
fate intervened once more and he was taken down with 
what the Doctor said was a very heavy cold but which 
Mrs. Sutherland declared might easily develop into 
pneumonia. 

Mitty Wright, who did Mrs. Sutherland’s washing, 
reported that the way his mother waited on the young 
gentleman and babied him was a caution, and the Doctor 
was nearly as bad, running up and down stairs, scolding 
one minute and giving medicine the next. The patient 
responded to the good nursing and before the middle of 
January he was able to be outdoors again. He conva- 
lesced very happily, especially after he was able to walk 
as far as the Lindsay hill. Uncle William showed no 
sign of repentance, though Mrs. Sutherland told him 
how near to death’s door the boy had been, but Wallace 
did not seem disturbed. The evil provided by Uncle 
Peter’s war-distemper was sufficient unto the day with- 
out worrying over Uncle William. The old man would 
come round yet, Wallace felt sure, and meanwhile he 
was having a very pleasant time and Orchard Glen with 
Christina in it was a very delightful place. 

Jimmie came stamping in one wild boisterous evening 
when February had began to shout across the country 
from hill to hill and turn the world into a whirling white- 
ness. 

It was Friday evening and he was earlier than usual 
as Mrs. Johnnie Dunn had given him a lift more than 
half way in her cutter. And she had so much Red Cross 
truck piled into it, he complained, that his feet stuck out 
into the drifts all the way home. 

He had stopped at the postoffice for the mail, and 


CALLED TO THE COLOURS 181 

there was a letter from Neil. His regular Tuesday letter 
had come as usual and a second one was rather 
surprising. 

Christina ran with it into the sitting room where her 
mother was sewing overtime on a couple of hospital 
shirts that The Woman said had to be ready for Mon- 
day, and not a minute later. 

“A letter from Neily,” Mrs. Lindsay said, stopping her 
work and taking off her spectacles to await the reading. 
“What will he be wanting to say at this time o’ the 
week ?” 

Christina tore it open and went to the window to catch 
the last light of the short winter day. The letter started 
as usual with the weekly budget of college news. Every 
one was speeding up, now, for Spring and exams, had 
just turned the last corner and were coming straight 
at them. Sandy’s new room was something superfine 
and much warmer than the last, but board wasn’t getting 
any better. They were all longing for a taste of Mother’s 
biscuits and Christine’s pies. And then the letter fell 
back into reminiscences of old days, as Neil’s letters had 
a habit of doing. 

“Do you remember, Mother, when we were little and 
any danger threatened, I was always the shy one who 
ran and got behind your skirts? And do you remember 
you were always saying to John and me, and especially 
to me, ‘Lads must be brave?’ It was not so bad, I re- 
member your saying, if Ellen or Mary were to take 
fright when a stranger came to the house, or Mr. Sin- 
clair called to hear our Catechism, but it was a real dis- 
grace for a boy. ‘Lads must be brave’ was your slogan. 
And may a time it has braced me in hard places since. 
Out on the prairie, for instance, when it was deadly lone- 
some, and the work seemed to be no use, and down 
here in the city when I gave out my text the night I 


182 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


preached in Hamilton Street Church, and looked up and 
saw old Professor Johnstone sitting straight in front of 
me, looking at his boots. I tell you, Mother, the conso- 
lations of religion were not so upholding at such mo- 
ments as your ‘Lads must be brave/ 

“And how it has been ‘dingin’ in my ears these days 
to fairly deeve me/’ as Tremendous K. would say. “The 
bugle calls it every morning when the boys march out 
on the campus. I see it in every headline of the paper; 
I hear it in every call for men, and I’m afraid I haven’t 
wanted to listen. I have wanted my life to run along 
a smooth road, the one I have planned for myself; a 
fine church with a big salary, plenty of time to study and 
a little to travel, and you sitting in the Manse pew with 
the best silk dress in the church. That has been my 
programme. But the pleasant road was not the way the 
Master went, and the servant cannot choose. He trod 
the hard way, and there is not the slightest doubt in my 
mind which way He wants me to go. I know you are 
guessing already at what I am going to ask of you. And 
now I must turn upon you with your own slogan and 
say, ‘Mothers must be brave !’ Oh, how brave and gal- 
lant they must be in these days, only they can know. 
But I know you, Mother, well enough to tell that you 
will say yes when I ask you to be brave enough to let 
me enlist. It is not a matter of choice with me, I am 
constrained. Woe is me if I go not to Belgium!” 

“I wish I could say this is all I am asking you to give 
up. Is it too much that we ask you to let Sandy go, too ? 
He is more eager than I and saw his duty clearly from 
the first. We both realise that yours is the hardest part. 
But your sons couldn’t be slackers. And after all the 
war may not last so long, and we’ll be home before you 
know it. Sandy will likely be a general, and who knows 
but I may get to be a lance-corporal !” 


CALLED TO THE COLOURS 


183 

There was more in the same light strain and a note 
for Christina from Sandy, saying he was taking the 
officers’ course and she must remember when he came 
home to say “sir” to him when she addressed him. 

But Christina did not read the letter through at first. 
When the full meaning of it burst upon her she turned 
to her mother, expecting to see tears, but instead her 
mother’s small bent figure had grown suddenly straight 
and her eyes were shining with a strange mingling of 
pride and anguish. 

“Oh, Mother!” cried Christina, “oh, don’t I wish I 
were a boy!” 

“Whisht, whisht !” cried her mother, “I could ill spare 
you, Christine, I can ill spare the lads.” And then she 
rose and went quietly into the bedroom and shut the 
door, and Christina knew that her mother had gone for 
strength to bear this trial to the source of all power. 

When Wallace came up the hill the next evening, he 
found the Lindsays in a state of subdued excitement. 
Christina’s cheeks were crimson and her eyes shone until 
she looked positively handsome. 

“Sandy and Neil are both going to the war,” she cried 
half in dismay, half in exultation. 

“Are they really?” asked Wallace. “They’re lucky. 
This beastly breakdown of mine has spoiled all my 
chances. My, I’d like to be in their boots!” 

Christina felt a sudden rising of resentment. “I don’t 
think they are a bit lucky,” she burst forth. “You 
surely don’t call it lucky to go to the front and get badly 
wounded, and perhaps killed?” 

Wallace smiled a superior smile. “There’s not much 
danger of that. The boys won’t get over there for a 
year at best, and the war will likely be all over by that 
time. Germany can’t stand this strain for many more 
months.” 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


184 

Christina had a distinct feeling of disappointment. 
She had wanted Wallace to admire the boys for all they 
were giving up, and he was calling them lucky, and main- 
taining an envious attitude as though they were off on 
a free trip to Europe. She changed the subject hastily 
and he did not refer to the war again that evening. 

Jimmie and Uncle Neil alone were filled with rejoic- 
ing. Uncle Neil felt an exultation that he was at pains 
to hide. He said little, for his sister’s anguished eyes 
forbade that he voice the pride that was consuming him, 
but he sat up half the night playing his fiddle, and for the 
next few days he went about whistling all the warlike 
songs he knew. 

The news was shouted to Grandpa, along with extracts 
from Neil’s letter, before he went to bed. He made little 
comment, merely saying that “they were fine lads and 
would do their duty.” But Christina knew he was deeply 
grieved that Neil should be turned aside from the min- 
istry. He expressed no sorrow but he did not sing the 
Hindmost Hymn and the next morning at family worship 
he read, 

“Why art thou cast down, oh, my soul, and why art 
thou disquieted within me?” 


CHAPTER XI 


“Last Leave” 

T HE Lindsay boys did not get home on leave until 
the Easter vacation, for they were taking their mili- 
tary training along with their university work. John drove 
down to Silver Creek Crossing to meet them, for the 
roads to town were almost impassable. The home-com- 
ing of the boys had always been the great event in their 
family life, but it was a far more wonderful thing this 
time ; it had something of the flavour of heroes returning 
from the war. 

Christina and Jimmie met them at the road gate under 
the moaning poplars, where the wind whipped her skirts 
about her and blew her hair into her eyes. 

Their mother and Uncle Neil were half way down the 
lane, and even Grandpa had hobbled to the edge of the 
garden to meet the soldier boys home on their first leave. 
Christina had known they would be in khaki, but when a 
trim young private of artillery in jingling spurs and 
bandolier, and a smart young subaltern in shining boots 
and straps and belt and what not leaped from the demo- 
crat and charged upon her ; instead of running to meet 
them, their sister put her head down against the gate post 
and burst into tears. Somehow the sight of Sandy in the 
uniform of his country’s service had overwhelmed 
Christina with a sense of the great gulf that had yawned 
between them. Sandy and Neil were gone and there were 
two soldier-men in their place. Manlike, they did not 
understand her tears. 


185 


i86 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


“Goodness, Christine!” cried Sandy, jovially, “if 
you’re sorry we’ve come home, we can turn right back 
if you’d rather.” 

“You silly thing — I — I’m not sorry,” gasped Christina, 
kissing them and turning from tears to laughter. “I — I 
forgot you’d be in uniform.” 

“Well, cheer up,” said Neil comfortingly, “I’ll admit 
that the sight of Sandy’s calves is enough to make 
anybody weep, but he’ll fatten up next summer — here’s 
Mother!” — and he ran up the lane at a breakneck pace. 

Certainly Sandy’s calves were not any too stout. He 
looked like a whip handle dressed up, Uncle Neil said 
as he circled round him admiringly. But he was as neat 
and smart as a whip, too, even if he were thin and even 
John could not hide his admiration. And as for Grand- 
pa, he had to take refuge in Gaelic exclamations to ex- 
press himself. 

The mother spoke just one hint of her regrets as 
they sat around the supper table, Neil at her right hand. 
She smoothed his rough khaki sleeve, examining the 
cloth closely, and pronounced it a fine comfortable piece 
that would wear well. 

“It’s the only cloth to wear these days, Mother,” Neil 
said. “Don’t you think so?” 

She shook her head. “I would be hoping to see you 
in a black coat, Neily,” she said softly. 

“That’ll come later,” said Neil comfortingly. “You 
think I did right, don’t you ?” he continued, anxiously. 

“Oh, yes, yes, indeed, you did right, and I’m proud 
that you will be wanting to go,” she declared bravely. 
And Neil’s heart was content. 

These were stirring days in Orchard Glen while the 
boys were home. All the boys and girls gathered at the 
Lindsays just as they used to. But there was one family 
missing. The McKenzies were absent, and Uncle Neil 


'LAST LEAVE’ 


187 

never sang the “Standard on the Braes o’ Mar” any more. 

There was great fun with Sandy and Neil, for Sandy 
was an officer and his elder brother a private, and it was 
impossible for them to remember that Neil’s old air of 
authority with Sandy was now quite out of place. The 
private was always saluting the subaltern with tremen- 
dous gravity, and the next moment treating him in a 
manner that deserved a court-martial. 

Jimmie followed his soldier brothers about in a passion 
of admiration. And one day the ambition that was 
burning him up burst forth. 

“Say, what do you think?” he cried excitedly, coming 
in with the afternoon mail. “Tommy Holmes has en- 
listed, and he’s a month younger than I am.” 

“Then he’s a silly youngster, and ought to be kept 
washing dishes to punish him,” said Neil sharply. “No 
boy under eighteen has any right to enlist !” 

“I’ll be eighteen next Fall!” declared Jimmie defiantly. 

“Which means you’ve barely turned seventeen, so 
hold your tongue,” said Sandy. 

Jimmie saluted with mock meekness. “Yes, sir. 
Thank you, sir,” he said, with a great show of nervous- 
ness. 

Uncle Neil laughed uproariously, but brother Neil 
looked serious, and when milking time came he took 
Jimmie aside in the barn. 

“You’re worrying Mother, with your talk about en- 
listing,” he said. “Can’t you see that, and be quiet.” 

“I want to go as much as you do,” said Jimmie stub- 
bornly. 

“I don’t want to go at all,” declared Neil, and his 
younger brother stared. “And neither would you if you 
would stop and think what a fearful thing this war is. 
I’m going because it is my duty, and so is Sandy. It’s 


i88 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


your duty to stay at home and finish the education John 
and Allister are giving you, and look after Mother. 

“I don’t want to go back to school,” grumbled Jimmie, 
“Not after I’ve passed next summer, anyway.” 

“John doesn’t want to stay here on the farm. He’d 
like to go to the Front, but he stays. You are young 
and you will be needed later. So be a man and do your 
duty. All the soldiers aren’t going into the trenches.” 

But his advice had little effect on Jimmie, the war 
fever was in his veins. He gave his promise, however, 
to wait until he was eighteen, and Neil had to be con- 
tent. But he was restless and fretful under the restric- 
tion, he felt quite sure that the war would all be over 
long before that date and his great opportunity would be 
gone. 

Meanwhile Orchard Glen was slowly waking up at the 
call for men. Tommy Holmes rushed into khaki after 
the first glorious sight of the Lindsay boys in the village 
street, and Tremendous K.’s eldest son followed. And 
Christina had the heavy task of writing to Ellen to tell 
her that Bruce had given up his prospects of being a 
Doctor, and was enlisted with the University corps. 
Mr. Sinclair’s only son, who was a minister in a neigh- 
bouring town, came home to say farewell, dressed in his 
chaplain’s uniform, and the little village lived in a whirl 
Of excitement. 

The Red Cross Society was busy night and day mak- 
ing socks for the boys who had left, with the result that 
they each one got far more than any young man with 
only two feet could possibly wear. 

All this stir, and the sight of so much khaki coming 
and going in the village had a bad effect upon Dr. 
McGarry. Every day he took the war more grievously to 
heart. He and Mr. Holmes took different sides as to the 
conduct of the spring campaign, and after Tommy en- 


“LAST LEAVE” 189 

listed it was not safe for the Doctor to go into the store, 
so high did feeling run. 

And at home the Doctor was even worse, until poor 
Mrs. Sutherland’s life was scarcely worth living. Wal- 
lace unwittingly brought down a torrent of wrath upon 
his head one day when the Spring Drive was on and 
prospects were looking black. It was an inopportune 
moment for Wallace to broach the subject upon which 
he had been thinking deeply for many days. 

“Uncle,” he said, as they sat down to their pretty tea- 
table in the sun-flooded dining-room. “I’d like to go 
on a farm this Spring. That Ford place below the mill 
is for sale, and the Browns are talking of buying it. 
You’ve always wanted to retire on a farm and I could 
start the work and ” 

He paused, interrupted by his mother’s dismayed ex- 
clamation. “Wallace! You with your prospects to set- 
tle down here and be a common farmer! Surely you 
don’t mean it!” 

“Elinor, don’t be foolish !” snapped her brother, look- 
ing up from a dreary paragraph concerning a British re- 
verse that was attempting to appear as a strategic move. 
“You might be glad to have him a common farmer, as 
you call it. And as for his prospects, I don’t see what 
they are, to tell you the truth.” 

“Don’t you agree with me, Uncle?” cried Wallace in- 
gratiatingly. “These old chaps here farm like Noah be- 
fore the flood. I’d like to show some of them an up-to- 
date way of managing stock.” But his uncle was not 
capable of agreeing with anybody. His sister’s tears for- 
bade that he put his duty before his nephew, and it fairly 
broke the old man’s heart that Wallace needed any one to 
suggest that he enlist. In times of peace he would have 
sympathised with the boy’s desire to be a farmer, and 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


190 

he approved highly of Christina, but just now he could 
listen to nothing but the cry of Belgium. 

“What’s the use of talking a lot of rot!” he burst 
forth irritably. “You needn’t ask my advice about farm- 
ing! Before you’d get your crop off your farm next 
Fall the Kaiser of Germany would have everything to say 
about it. How will you like it when you have to pass over 
most of your profits to him and his War Lords? Here 
we are planning and scheming and all the time we’re 
living in a Fool’s Paradise, with the enemy at our door! 
We are marrying and giving in marriage, while the floods 
are pouring in upon us! Yes, go farming to-morrow 
if you like ! It’ll only be for a few months anyway. The 
Philistines are upon us !” 

Matters were always serious when the Doctor took 
to quoting Scripture, and Mrs. Sutherland reached pro- 
tectingly for her cut-glass spoon tray as his fist came 
down with a crash upon the table. 

The result of the unhappy episode was that Wallace 
tramped sulkily up to his room after supper, and when 
his distressed mother went up to comfort him, she found 
him packing his suit-case once more. He was going to 
enlist. This was the end, he could stand no more, he 
declared. 

“Oh, Wallace, Wallace, you will surely break your 
widowed mother’s heart,” declared Mrs. Sutherland in 
despair. She wept and pleaded. She made extrava- 
gant promises. She would write to Uncle William, 
she would even go to see him if he thought best, 
she would not urge him to go back to college if 
he did not want to. She would write Uncle Wil- 
liam about the farm and she would try to make 
Uncle Peter be more reasonable if only Wallace would 
promise that he would not break her heart by enlisting. 
Wallace was a warm-hearted boy who could not bear to 


LAST LEAVE 5 


look upon distress. So he promised and his mother put 
aside all her high hopes and wrote humbly and pleadingly 
to her brother. Wallace was really not strong enough 
to study, the confinement seemed to impair his health. 
Peter agreed with her there. He would like to go farm- 
ing, there was an excellent chance to buy or rent a place 
right near the village. Peter was interested in it and de- 
clared that he would like to retire and go on this farm 
some day. They felt that Wallace’s health would im- 
prove if he had outdoor life, etc. 

Whatever the letter contained it proved the key to 
unlock Uncle William’s closed money box. He was not 
at all a hard man and his sister’s distress moved him. 
He wrote that he was glad that the young cub had sense 
enough to farm, for it was no use trying to educate him. 
But he thought that a military training would be good 
for a young fellow’s health. However, if he would 
rather feed the pigs and clean out the stable than go to 
college, all right, let him, that was probably his proper 
place. The words stung but they were covered by a 
most wonderful cheque, with instructions to Uncle Peter 
to see that the youngster did not throw it away. 

Mrs. Sutherland was relieved even in the midst of her 
bitter disappointment. She had had such high ambitions 
for Wallace and now there seemed nothing ahead of him 
but the life of a common farmer. He would marry 
Christina Lindsay and probably never go further from 
home than Algonquin and William would give all his 
money to Tom’s girls who had more now than they 
needed. But there was no alternative, and when she 
thought of his enlisting she was thankful that there was 
something to keep him at home. The recruiting officers 
would not trouble a young man on a farm. 

From that time Christina noticed a marked change 
in Mrs. Sutherland’s attitude toward her. From being 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


192 

coldly aloof she became warmly gracious and treated her 
second only to Joanna. Christina accepted the change 
gratefully. It had always been a trial, this disapproval 
of Wallace’s mother. She ought to be very happy, she 
told herself, when she scolded herself for still longing 
to be away. Wallace would always be in Orchard Glen 
now, the Ford place had good bams and a fine old house, 
and who knew ? — her heart beat fast at the thought, but 
there was no thrill of joy accompanying. Some subtle 
change had come over Christina since Sandy had en- 
listed. It seemed as if there could be no other course 
for a young man now in these days of agony and blood. 
Her heart was away with her brothers in their high 
endeavour and could be content with nothing less. 

It was a beautiful Autumn day when Sandy and Neil 
came home for their last leave, as bright and happy as 
though they were going for a pleasure trip round the 
world. Hugh MacGillivray brought Mary home to say 
good-bye to them, for Mary was needing special care 
these days and could not travel alone. 

Grandpa read the 91st Psalm at worship the morning 
before they left, and he paused and looked at the two 
young soldiers as he read the words. “Thou shalt not be 
afraid of the terror by night nor for the arrow that 
flieth by day ... a thousand shall fall at thy side, 
and ten thousand at thy right hand but it shall not come 
nigh thee.” 

Christina listened and wondered and a strange new 
doubt crept into her soul. How could she believe that 
promise, knowing that so many brave boys had fallen 
before the arrow that flieth by day and that these dear 
ones might meet a similar fate? Were the words of that 
psalm merely beautiful sounding phrases that meant noth- 
ing? She glanced at her mother to see if she could read 


LAST LEAVE 


a similar doubt there ; but Mrs. Lindsay’s face was rapt, 
as though she had seen a new vision of the psalm’s mean- 
ing, and Christina was puzzled and disheartened. 

She held up her head bravely, standing at the garden 
gate to wave them good-bye as they drove down the lane 
in the golden sunlight. Then she ran down the lane 
after them, stumbling a little when a mist came over 
her eyes. She even ran down the road, gallantly waving 
her apron as long as Sandy waved his cap, feeling glad 
that he could not see the tears that were streaming down 
her face. And she made sure that the democrat had 
disappeared behind the hill before she gave way and 
sank down sobbing on the dusty grass of the roadside. 

She went back to the desolate home, she must not 
linger over her grief for she was needed there as com- 
forter. Her mother had disappeared into the sanctuary 
of her room where she was seeking strength from the 
source that had never failed her in all life’s trials and 
would hold her up even in this great agony. Grandpa 
was sitting fumbling helplessly with his hymn book and 
arguing with himself. She could hear him whispering, 
“Be not far from me, O Lord, for trouble is near !” and 
she patted his bowed white head gently as she passed. 
Uncle Neil had fled to the barn, and Mitty was crying 
over the wash-tub in the shed. Christina went furiously 
to work, as her refuge from tears. It would never do 
to break down and be no use when Sandy was gone 
away to fight for her! 

But work would not last all day. It was finished in 
the evening and Wallace came up in his usual gay spirits 
to report progress on his new farm, where everything was 
running in the most up-to-date manner. But Christina 
was too sad to even pretend to be interested. She could 
not rejoice over a new gasoline engine that was to do 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


194 

all the work, when Sandy and Neil were to be made 
part of the cruel engine of war. And for the first time 
Wallace found her uninterested and consequently unin- 
teresting. 


CHAPTER XII 


“All the Blue Bonnets Are Over the Border V 9 

O NE day early in the Winter, when the boys’ English 
letters had begun to arrive regularly, Auntie Elspie 
Grant came over the hills on her snowshoes, to pay a visit 
of sympathy to Mrs. Lindsay. She brought a bottle of 
the liniment they made every Fall from the herbs of 
the Craig-Ellachie garden, a stone jar of their best rasp- 
berry cordial, a pot of mincemeat, and a piece of Christ- 
mas cake. 

She spent a long afternoon while they both knitted 
socks and read the boys’ letters and heard the latest news 
of Allister and Ellen and Mary and discussed at great 
length the never-failing virtues of Gavin. John drove 
the guest home in the cutter round by the road, 
for Mrs. Lindsay could not bear the sight of Elspie 
walking away over the drifts, though as a matter of 
fact, Elspie in her youthful spirits enjoyed it immensely. 

“Elspie Grant’s worryin’ about Gavin,” said Mrs. Lind- 
say, when the guest had gone and the early supper was 
being cleared away. 

“What’s the matter with him?” asked Christina with 
that feeling of self condemnation that any thought of 
Gavin always brought. 

“She doesn’t quite know. That’s the trouble. He’s not 
been eating and he doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere. 
I wonder what can be wrong with the lad ? Such a com- 
fort as Gavin will be to the girls !” 

195 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


196 

Christina did not suggest an explanation. She had 
no self-conceit, and could not imagine that Gavin was 
grieving over her to the extent of loss of appetite. But 
she could not help wondering if she contributed in any 
measure to his trouble. For now that the matter was 
drawn to her attention she remembered that Gavin 
was not taking the part in the life of the young 
people of the village which he had once taken. Since 
the Red Cross Society had brought about a reunion of the 
divided forces of Orchard Glen, social activities had be- 
come very popular, but Gavin was not one of the reunited 
company. He did not come to the Temperance meet- 
ings any more and had dropped Choir Practice. He had 
even left the choir of his own church and he had de- 
serted on the very day when he was most needed, the 
day they unveiled the Honour Roll with the names of the 
boys who had gone overseas. And in spite of all Tre- 
mendous K.’s scolding and pleadings he would not return. 

“Gavin Grant’s queer,” grumbled Jimmie. “We were 
depending on him to give something the next night the 
boys have to give the programme, but he won’t even help 
with the singing.” 

“Did you ask him what was the matter,” asked Chris- 
tina interested. “Auntie Elspie told Mother that he is 
acting as if he were sick.” 

“I think he’s acting just plain mean,” declared Jim- 
mie, who had been taking Sandy’s place with Gavin 
lately and was disappointed in him. “Maybe he’s in 
love,” he added with a grin and went off whistling. 

But it was not that altogether that troubled Gavin, 
for there was certainly something very badly wrong with 
the lad. It was love and war combined that ailed him, 
and the war had become a burden too heavy for his 
strong young shoulders. 

For quiet, shy, gentle Gavin was burning to be up 


'BLUE BONNETS’” 


197 

and away into the struggle. His daily tasks of peace had 
become a galling joke scarcely to be borne. And the 
more he yearned to be gone the more bitterly he blamed 
himself for what he called his ingratitude and faithless- 
ness. He loved his three foster-mothers with all the 
power of his loyal young heart. They had rescued him 
from a miserable starved childhood and had lavished all 
the wealth of their loving hearts upon him. And now 
he had grown to manhood, and every year they looked 
more and more to him for support. Their declin- 
ing years had come and he dared not face the pos- 
sibility of leaving them. He argued the matter out 
with himself by day in field and barnyard, and by night 
as he tossed on his sleepless bed. Why should he yearn 
to go when his duty plainly declared that he should stay ? 
Many of the young farmers about Orchard Glen, boys 
he had grown up with and who could easily be spared, 
never thought for a moment of the war as their task. 
And why should he, who was so sadly needed at home? 

But it was inevitable that Gavin should be unhappy 
in the safety of home while the world was in agony. 
Without realising it the Grant Girls had raised their 
boy to be a soldier, they so gentle and so peace loving. 
Life had not been narrow, even away back at Craig-Ella- 
chie, where the grass grew in the middle of the corduroy 
road. Gavin had been nurtured on songs and tales of 
noble deeds and deathless devotion. He had been reared 
in a home where each one vied with the other in for- 
getting self and serving the other. The best books had 
been his daily reading. And, greatest of all, he had been 
trained to take as his life’s pattern the One whose sole 
purpose had been not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister. 

Night after night as he was growing into manhood, 
Auntie Flora would seat herself at the little old organ. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


198 

and together they would all sail happily over a sea of 
song, thrilling ballads of the old days when men went 
gaily to death, singing 

“So what care I though Death be nigh, 

I live for love or die!” 

Then Auntie Elspie would put aside her spinning and 
Auntie Janet her knitting and they would tell him tales 
from the glorious history of the clan Grant. And he was 
never tired of hearing that story of the Indian Mutiny, 
told the Grant Girls by their grandfather ; how a Highland 
regiment held a shot torn position till help came, held 
against overwhelming odds while men fell on every side, 
held, crying to each other all up and down the sore- 
pressed line, “Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie !” 

And so Gavin could not but grow up filled with great 
aspirations. He could no more help being chivalrous and 
self-forgetful than he could help having the slow, soft 
accent of his Aunties. 

And then into his high-purposed life came the Great 
Occasion! It seemed as if he had been trained just for 
this. It called to him and him alone. The greatest strug- 
gle of history; a death-struggle of sore-pressed Freedom 
against hideous Oppression was shaking the earth, and 
the smoke of the conflict was blackening the heavens — 
and through it all Gavin Grant remained at peace in his 
home! Every old Belgian woman of whom he read, 
driven from her ruined home, was Auntie Elspie. Every 
Belgian girl, suffering unspeakable wrong, was Christina. 
And they were crying night and day to him for help and 
crying in vain. 

Many a night, after he had read a flaming page of Bel- 
gium’s and Armenia’s fearful history, he sat, sleepless, by 
the dying kitchen fire until dawn, and the day that the 
name of Edith Cavell was written in letters of fire across 


“BLUE BONNETS !” 199 

the skies of civilisation, Gavin went off into the woods 
alone with his axe, and tried to put some of the fury that 
was burning him up into savage blows against the un- 
offending timber. 

And then the Orchard Glen boys began to answer the 
call, one by one; Burke and Trooper, and Christina’s 
brothers. Tommy Holmes and Charlie Henderson, and 
Bruce McKenzie, and he was like Gareth in the story 
Auntie Flora had so often told him, Gareth who had to 
work in the kitchen, while his brother-knights rode clank- 
ing past him through the doorway, out into the world of 
mighty deeds, out to meet Death on the Field of Glory. 
Those were the days when he had to repeat “Stand fast, 
Craig-Ellachie” over and over again as he went about 
his peaceful tasks. It brought him little comfort, for 
it was not to stand fast that he wanted, but to spring 
forward in answer to the call to the hazardous task, to 
death itself, the call which through the ages has always 
summoned the high heart. Sometimes the acutest mis- 
ery would seize him at the thought that persistently 
haunted him, the fear that if he had been really a Grant 
he would have seen his duty more clearly and would 
already be in the battle line. Perhaps there was some 
necessary spirit left out of him, some saving quality which 
his degraded parents could not hand down to him. If he 
had been of better blood might he not have paid no 
attention to tears and partings but have thrown away 
everything in the glorious chance of dying in the greatest 
cause for which the world had ever struggled ? 

He argued the question from every point, and yet 
he could not find it in his soul to leave his Aunts. He 
watched them intently to see if they would drop any 
hint of their opinion in the matter. But while they 
highly admired Trooper and commended the Lindsay 
boys, saying that not even the ministry should keep Neil 


200 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


at home, he could not elicit from them the smallest hint 
that they thought he was called to enlist. And so he 
set his teeth, determined to Stand Fast though his heart 
should break. But he was ashamed to be seen in public 
and he grew more shy and reticent as the hard days 
dragged on. Gradually he dropped out of all the activi- 
ties that used to take him to the village. When he went 
he always saw Christina and Wallace Sutherland to- 
gether, and that sight added to his misery. And finally 
he could not bear to hear himself sing. He looked down 
at his big brawny hands and arms and felt ashamed that 
he should be standing in a safe and peaceful place, sing- 
ing! He choked at the thought. He sometimes wished 
he were not so big and strong. If he were small and 
weak like Willie Brown or even had one leg like Duke 
it would be easier to bear. 

He gave no reason when he suddenly left the choir 
the day the Honour Roll was unveiled. He could not 
confess that he found it intolerable to sit up there right 
next to that list of heroes. His Aunts remonstrated 
gently, but though he answered as gently he was un- 
yielding. So he went back to the family pew and sat 
beside Auntie Elspie. To be sure the growing Honour Roll 
faced him there, every name written in letters of flame 
that leaped out and scorched him, but at least he did not 
have to sing back there and could bear his shame better. 

His Aunts worried themselves almost ill over him. 
Auntie Janet dosed him with medicine and compelled him 
to wear heavier underwear. Auntie Flora was so fearful 
that his spiritual condition was languishing that she spoke 
to Mr. Sinclair and he promised to see Gavin and talk 
to him. Auntie Elspie said nothing but she watched him, 
and finally her keen mother-heart divined his malady. 

Auntie Flora had always been Gavin’s instructor, and 
had led him along the way of good books and into a slight 


BLUE BONNETS! 


201 


knowledge of music, Auntie Janet had been his play- 
mate and confidante, the one with whom he had always 
shared his secrets and to whom he had confessed his 
boyish scrapes. But Auntie Elspie had been his mother, 
and she knew her boy. At first she thought the trouble 
arose over Christina and was bitterly disappointed when 
the handsome young man from town had stepped in 
and ruined all Gavin’s hopes. But she knew he was 
too proud to grieve long, and he had laughed one night 
when Auntie Flora read him “The Manly Heart,” “Shall 
I, wasting in despair, die because a lady’s fair? If she 
be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?” and 
asked that she read it again. It was just right, he de- 
clared, and went around whistling that evening. There 
must be something more than Christina troubling him 
she concluded. And then she began to suspect the truth. 
Many little incidents helped to confirm her suspicions, 
and at last she realised it beyond a doubt. Gavin was 
craving to be up and away into the death struggle of the 
trenches ! 

The truth broke upon her with a thrill of mingled ex- 
ultation and dismay. For the three gentle ladies who 
could not bear to contemplate the possibility of Gavin’s 
leaving them, were each secretly cherishing a longing to 
hear him express a desire to be away to the war, the 
desire which he was so painfully smothering for their 
sakes. 

Hughie Reid, who was next of kin to the Grant girls, 
lived on the farm just below Craig-Ellachie on the road to 
the village. He was a distant cousin, and a kindly man 
and the Aunties were always giving his wife a hand with 
her work and practically kept his boys in socks and mit- 
tens. His oldest boys were almost grown to manhood, 
and Hughie had often said to Auntie Elspie, 

“If Gavin ever wants to quit farming, Elspie, I’ll take 


202 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


Craig-Ellachie on shares. I need a bit more land for 
my stock/* And Auntie Elspie had always laughed at 
him, saying there was little fear of his ever getting it, for 
Gavie would never think of anything but the farm. 
But the night when Gavin’s heart was laid bare before 
her, Auntie Elspie remembered Hughie’s oft repeated 
wish and made a great and noble resolve. 

She came to her dismaying conclusion concerning 
Gavin one evening after he had been to town. He was 
all unconscious of her loving espionage and had no idea 
that he was betraying himself. A Highland Battalion 
was being raised in the County, called the Blue Bonnets. 
Recruiting agents were going all through the country, 
and at concert and tea meeting the young people sang 
a gallant old Scottish song transcribed to suit the locality. 

“March, March! Dalton and Anondell! 

Why my lads, dinna ye march forward in order? 

March, March! Greenwood and Orchard Glen, 

All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border!” 

Gavin had been to Algonquin and had heard it on every 
side, had seen boys in khaki marching down the street, 
and worse still, lads in kilts swinging along, laughing and 
light-hearted. And he had fled home, in terror lest some 
one accost him and ask him to join them. The lilting 
lines had set themselves to the jingle of his bells as he 
drove homeward, and mile by mile he could hear nothing 
but 

“Trumpets are sounding, war steeds are bounding, 

Stand to your arms and march in good order. 

Germans shall many a day tell of the bloody fray 
When all the Blue Bonnets came over the Border!” 

“March! March!” . . . 

He was very silent at supper that evening. He made 
an effort to be especially kind and attentive, but he could 


‘BLUE BONNETS ! ! 


not be merry. He could not chat about his visit to town 
and the doings there which the Aunties were all eager 
to hear. For he had seen nothing but boys in kilts, 
swinging laughingly down the street, had heard nothing 
but the pipes and drums lilting “All the Blue Bonnets are 
over the Border !” 

And all the while Auntie Elspie watched him closely, 
her heart sinking. 

When supper was over and they sat around the sit- 
ting room stove, Auntie Flora seated herself at the organ, 
thinking to cheer him. 

“Come away, Gavie dear,” she cried. “It’s a long 
time since we had some music and I’m afraid you’ll be 
forgettin’ the fiddle altogether. Come away and we’ll 
have a good old sing.” 

He could not refuse, but said he would play if she 
would sing, and then he passed over all the old war-like 
favourites, “A Warrior Bold” and “Scots Wha Hae,” 
and asked instead for songs of peace, “Caller Herrin’,” 
“Ye Banks and Braes,” “Silver Threads Among the 
Gold.” 

“Sing ‘A Warrior Bold’ Gavie,” cried Auntie Janet, 
looking up from the sock she was knitting for Burke 
Wright, “Ye’ve no sung it for such a long, long time.” 

He made an excuse about not being able to sing it; 
it was too high for him. 

“Ye haven’t got a cold, have you, hinny?” she asked 
anxiously, and he answered no, that he was quite well. 

Then Auntie Flora, all unconscious, opened all the stops 
of the little organ and burst into Bruce’s deathless “Battle 
Hymn,” the welcome to all gallant souls to a gory bed or 
to victory. 

“Play it and sing it both, Gavie!” cried Auntie Janet 
joining her voice in, “Now’s the day, and now’s the 
hour!” But Gavin made a hurried excuse about seeing 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


204 

to the cattle, and hastily putting down his violin went out 
quickly. Auntie Elspie saw his face as he passed and all 
her doubts and with them her hopes vanished. She had 
suspected before; now she knew! 

“I thought Gavie did all the chores,” said Auntie Flora, 
looking up as she finished only the first stanza of the 
song. Auntie Elspie said nothing. She bent over the 
hospital shirt she was sewing, as though to look for 
a flaw in her work. She was winking away the tears 
that her sisters must not see. 

She put on an old coat of Gavin’s and slipped out after 
him to the bam. 

She found there was little to do. He had recovered 
his composure, and scolded her lovingly for coming out 
in the cold. He had a momentary picture of his Aunts’ 
going out to the stable on sharp nights like these to feed 
the cattle and bed the horses, and he tried to believe he 
was glad he was not going. 

The next day at dinner Auntie Elspie remarked cas- 
ually that she thought she would take a run over to 
Hughie’s and see if little Elspie was better of her cold, 
and have a cup of tea with Hughie’s wife. 

Gavin had an errand to Orchard Glen Mill, and on his 
way drove her over in the old box sleigh, promising to call 
for her early on his return. Auntie Janet had a few 
purchases she wanted him to make at the store in 
Orchard Glen, and when he had come back from the mill, 
Gavin tied his horse and ran into the store. 

Marmaduke was sitting tilted back on a chair behind 
the stove making love to Tilly. Life had been but a dreary 
business for Duke since Trooper went to the war. Old 
Tory Brown and old Willie Henderson, who had been 
bitter enemies ever since the disastrous day the Piper 
took his music to the wrong meeting, were sitting wait- 
ing for the mail on opposite sides of the stove. Mr. 


“BLUE BONNETS!” 205 

Holmes was slowly and carefully putting the letters and 
papers into their proper compartments, at the back of 
the store, looking up over his spectacles as each new- 
comer entered. 

“Hello, Gavin,” called Marmaduke, “Cold day. Reg- 
’lar Tory weather we're gettin' these days.” 

“It'd be hot enough times if yous folks and Quebec 
was runnin’ the country,” remarked old Tory Brown, 
while Mrs. Holmes, who had come in to give a hand 
at distributing the mail, gave a warning before her 
departure into the house, “Now, Pa, don’t let the folks 
talk politics. It’s bad enough to have our boys goin’ to 
the war without havin’ war at home.” 

Tilly ran forward and took Gavin’s list and began 
to put up his parcels. She stopped to stare out of the 
frosty window as a smart cutter dashed up to the store 
veranda. A portly gentleman in the uniform of a Major 
stepped out of it. He was not an unfamiliar figure in 
the locality, having been through the country for some 
time raising recruits for The Blue Bonnets. Major Har- 
rison was not very successful in his dealings with men, 
but if he had little influence at home he had plenty at 
Ottawa and was sure of his position. 

“Here comes Lord Kitchener,” remarked Marmaduke. 
“Better take a good look at him, Tilly. He’ll maybe be 
goin’ to the Front in a year or so, and you won’t see 
him for a while.” 

Mr. Holmes looked over his glasses, a flash of appre- 
ciation in his eyes. Since Tommy had gone to the Front 
his father was on the lookout for any one who stayed 
behind under the shelter of a khaki uniform and Major 
Harrison was said to belong to that rapidly growing unit. 

“Look out, Duke,” he warned. “He’s a great per- 
suader, he’ll have you in The Blue Bonnets before you 
know what’s happened you.” 


206 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


A joyous resolution suddenly shone in Marmaduke’s 
eyes. He quickly concealed his peg leg behind a barrel, 
and leaning back, the picture of idleness, he drummed on 
the floor with his one good foot and whistled, “It’s a 
Long Way to Tipperary/’ 

The Major swung open the door and marched in, fol- 
lowed by his bat man. He had been but an indifferent 
business man on a small salary before he fell upon the 
fat days of war, but now he had a servant and a position 
of authority. 

“Good-day, Mr. Holmes,” he cried heartily. “Good- 
day, Miss Tilly, you’re looking as lovely as ever, I 
see.” 

Tilly gasped and giggled and took refuge in question- 
ing Gavin as to whether it was number forty or fifty 
white spool his Aunt wanted. 

“Good-day, sir,” cried Marmaduke heartily, suspend- 
ing his musical performance for a moment. “Glad to see 
you. Heard you were gone to the Front. Glad to see 
it’s a false alarm again.” 

“But my heart's right there /’ he added tunefully, keep- 
ing time on the top of a barrel with his fingers. 

“How’s things going in the Army, Major Harrison?” 
put in Mr. Holmes, seeing the Major looking slightly 
annoyed. 

“The Army’s growing,” answered the officer, pulling 
off his gloves and spreading his cold hands over the 
stove. 

“We just need a few more young fellows like you’ve 
got hanging round this corner, and we’ll have the 

Germans driven back to Berlin in another month or 
__ »» 
so. 

He looked around him sharply. “This is a war where 
no young chap that’s got red blood in his veins can 


BLUE BONNETS! 


stay at home.” He glanced meaningly from Gavin to 
Marmaduke. 

Gavin was one of Marmaduke’s warmest friends and 
he did not enjoy the thought of the Major worrying him. 
He attempted to draw the fire to himself. 

“Some folks round here claims to have blue blood, 
though,” he remarked with a guiklessness that would 
have misled a German Spy. He accomplished his object ; 
the Major looked down at him. 

“If their claims are true they won’t be here long, my 
friend,” he said emphatically, but he turned to Gavin 
again. 

“Come along, young man, and let me put you down for 
The Blue Bonnets. It’s the finest Battalion that’s going 
overseas, and we’ve room for only a few more. I believe 
you’re Scotch, aren’t you ? What’s your name ?” 

“Grant, Gavin Grant.” 

“Grant ! Why, you’re the very fellow I’m looking for ! 
Come along and get into a kilt, man. What’s a fellow by 
the name of Grant doing at home when there’s a war on ? 
Wouldn’t you like to go over and smash the Germans, 
now ?” 

Gavin looked at him dumbly. It was as if a lost 
soul were being asked if it would like to enter Para- 
dise. 

“Well, what’s keeping you?” asked the Major im- 
patiently. 

“I — I can’t leave the farm and my Aunts,” he stam- 
mered. 

“Pshaw, you’re not tied to your Auntie’s apron string, 
are you ? Every fellow I ask to enlist in this part of the 
country has got either an aunt or a grandmother or a 
second cousin ” 

“I’m worse off than that,” interrupted Marmaduke, 


208 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


seeing that Gavin was in misery, “I’ve got a — ” His 
voice dropped to a confidential whisper, — “A girl!” 

The Major looked at him sharply, but Marmaduke was 
a perfect picture of rural simplicity. 

“You’re not married are you?” he asked shortly, glanc- 
ing at Tilly, who had forgotten all about Gavin’s pur- 
chases and was staring at the smart officer in open- 
mouthed admiration. 

“Well, not, — that is,” Duke hesitated in evident pain- 
ful embarrassment, “well, we’re not married yet, but we 
expect very soon, — ” He turned a languishing look upon 
Tilly, and indicated her to the Major with a jerk of his 
thumb over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t have a fellow 
go and leave his girl now, would you ?” 

Tilly went off into a spasm of hysterical giggles and 
denials, and the shoulders of the two old men beside the 
stove began to heave with suppressed laughter. 

“Oh, well, you’re not married yet,” cried the Major 
briskly. “You come along and enlist in our Highland 
Battalion. What’s your name ?” 

“Timothy O’Toole,” said Marmaduke shamelessly, 
“and I’ll go in no Highland gang, I’d nivir do at all at 
all among them outlandish spalpeens with their bare 
legs ; Tilly wouldn’t like it,” he added modestly. 

“Pshaw! Everybody knows that half the Highland 
regiments in the British Army are Irish. Enlist first 
and you can get married after. Every girl admires the 
khaki, eh, Miss Holmes?” 

Tilly was hanging on to the counter by this time, too 
far gone to be able to enlighten the Major as to the 
truth, while her father was standing with a bunch of 
letters in his hand, a pleased smile on his face. Nobody 
minded Duke’s nonsense and he dearly loved to see these 
city fellows taken down a button hole or two. 

“No sir,” cried Duke firmly, “no Highland Battalion 


“BLUE BONNETS !” 


209 

for me. I’m goin’ over wearin’ o’ the Grane or nothing 
at all. Besides my Bittalion ain’t goin’ yet for a while. 
I was askin’ some of them high-up officers in Algonquin 
and they were tellin’ me not to be in any hurry. You 
see,” he added confidingly, “it’s this way. You can get 
transferred. If you’re in a Bittalion that’s goin’ over 
you get transferred to another, and when it goes you get 
transferred again. I can let you in on the thing if you’d 
like to know how they do it,” he added with ingratiating 
generosity. 

The Major’s face flamed hot. It was no secret that 
he had been going through the transferring process. Red 
anger leaped into his eyes. 

“Aw, what’s the matter with you?” he asked, drop- 
ping his suave manner and becoming abusive. “Are you 
one of those yellow-livered chaps that’s got chronic cold 
feet ?” 

“Well,” said Marmaduke ingeniously, “it ain’t quite 
so bad as that. I’ve got one cold foot though, but I 
s’pose that wouldn’t keep me out. I guess a wooden leg 
wouldn’t matter any more than a wooden head would 
it?” And straight in the air he held his peg leg up to 
view. 

The long pent up amusement of the audience burst 
forth. The two old enemies across the stove broke into a 
simultaneous upheaval, a disturbance that filled up the 
breach between them with the loose earth of laughter. 
Mr. Holmes dropped his letters and chuckled loudly, and 
as for Tilly, she was past giggling, she fairly shouted. 

The Major turned and walked out, his face white with 
anger. 

“He’s gone to get transferred to the Five-Hundredth,” 
declared Timothy O’Toole joyfully. “I hear that Can- 
ada’s goin’ to send over Five Hundred Battalions and he’ll 
be all ready for the last one.” 


210 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


“Ah, Duke, Duke, you’re a rascal,” said Mr. Holmes 
reprovingly. 

“It’s the only fun I can get out o’ this business of 
stayin’ at home,” declared Duke, his face growing grave, 
“and I guess I need all that’s cornin’ to me with Trooper 
and the other fellows away fightin’ for me!” 

Gavin could not join the laughter. He was too deeply 
hurt. He gathered up his parcels and hurried away; 
and once more the bells set themselves to the tune of 
“Blue Bonnets” and played “March, March, Why, ma 
lads, dinna’ ye March Forward in Order?” as he drove 
home. 

Auntie Elspie was talking to Hughie Reid in deep con- 
ference when Gavin arrived at the farm, and on the way 
home she was so silent, that he was worried over her. 

“You’re not cold, are you, Auntie Elspie?” he asked 
for the third time, as he tucked the old sheep skin robe 
around her. 

“No, no, lad, I’m not cold,” she said, but she shivered 
as she said it. “It was not the blustering February 
wind that chilled, but the cold hand that seemed closing 
round her heart, the knowledge that now it was possible 
for Gavin to go and that soon she must tell him. She 
put off the evil day. She could not tell him to-night, 
she felt, but perhaps on the morrow. 

As they were sitting down to their early supper and 
the February sunset was turning all the white fields to a 
glory of rose and gold, a big sleigh-load of merry young 
folk came jingling down the glittering road and swept 
past the house with a storm of bell-music. There was a 
good Winter road here across their sheltered valley and 
through the swamp to Dalton’s Corners and the Orchard 
Glen Choir was taking its musical way thither. They 
were singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” and Auntie 
Janet, young as any of them, ran to the door and waved 


‘BLUE BONNETS!’* 


213 * 


to them, while Bruce and Wallace and Prince and Bonnie 
bounded out barking madly. But Gavin did not go near 
the door nor look after them. He suspected Christina 
would be there, and most likely Wallace Sutherland and 
their gay company was not for him. 

“You ought to be going with them, Gavie, lad,” cried 
Auntie Janet, coming in with a rush of fresh air. “Lis- 
ten, they’re singin’ : ‘All the Blue Bonnets are over the- 
Border !’ now ! Eh, isn’t it bonnie ?” 

Auntie Elspie’s loving eyes were watching Gavin, and 
her sinking heart told her she must soon do something to 
put an end to his misery. 

He went to his bed early that night, before they could 
ask him to sing, but he could not sleep. He heard Auntie 
Janet and Auntie Flora come up the creaking old stairs 
together, talking in whispers lest they disturb him. They 
shared a room at the end of the hall and Auntie Elspie’s, 
room was opposite his. It was quite late when finally he 
heard her come up to bed. But yet he could not sleep. 
His window-blind was rolled to the top and the moonlight 
flooded his room. Outside the diamond-spangled earth 
lay still and frost bound. Craig-Ellachie stood out white, 
silver-crowned, against the blue of the forest. Gavin 
raised himself on his elbow and looked out at the silent 
beauty of the night. The great white expanse seemed 
calling to him to come away and do as his fellow heroes 
were doing. He ought to be lying in a freezing trench, 
grasping a rifle instead of skulking in a feather bed 
wrapped in warm blankets. But indeed the bed had be- 
come a very rack to poor Gavin, the blankets smothered 
him. He tossed from side to side, vainly seeking re-* 
lief. 

Suddenly he sat up in bed, holding his breath to 
listen. The great glittering space of the outdoor world 
had taken voice and was crying out against him for not; 


212 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


playing the man. From far across the silver sheen of the 
fields, clear and piercing, came the words, 

“By oppression’s woes and pains, 

By our sons in servile chains, 

We will drain our dearest veins 
But they shall be free! 

Lay the proud usurper low ; 

Tyrants fall in every foe; 

Liberty’s in every blow; 

Let us do — or die!” 

Gavin sprang from his bed and flung on his clothes 
madly. He had a wild notion that he must run out to 
the road and shout aloud to the world that he was com- 
ing, coming to the battle-front! When he was dressed 
he ran to the window and threw it up and his madness 
departed from him. It was only the gay sleigh-load re- 
turning from the Dalton tea-meeting. They swept past 
the house, setting his dogs barking madly, and the song 
died away as they disappeared down the glittering silver 
road. Gavin leaned far out of the window ; his burning 
face stung by the cold air. 

“Stand fast, Craig-Ellachie !” he whispered through his 
clenched teeth. The hot tears came smarting to his eyes, 
and he suddenly drew back, ashamed of his weakness. He 
closed the window, remembering even in his misery to do 
it quietly so as not to disturb the dear ones who were 
sleeping. He still knelt on at the window watching the 
shining track where the song of deathless liberty was 
fading away. 

But there was a pair of loving ears near, that had heard 
all Gavin’s movements. Auntie Elspie slept in the room 
opposite his, and ever since the night he had developed 
the whooping cough she had kept her door ajar and that 
was the reason she knew that her boy had not been sleep- 
ing well for many a night. And to-night she lay awake 


BLUE BONNETS!” 


213 

listening to the incessant creak of his old roped bed, and 
sharing his misery. She knew she could not bear it much 
longer, she must rise and tell him he was free. And 
then she heard him bounding from his bed, and the notes 
of the song as it swept gloriously past and died away. 

She rose from her bed and lit the lamp. She 
dressed herself fully, for she knew there was no more 
sleep for her that night. She was trembling from 
head to foot, and praying for strength to carry out her 
heavy task. She had something of the feeling of the 
patriarch when the imperative Voice called, “Take now 
thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and 
offer him for a burnt offering.” She dropped on her 
knees before her bed. She knelt a long time, and then, 
strengthened, obedient to the Voice that summons all 
great souls, she rose and walked into Gavin’s room. 

Gavin was still kneeling by the window when she en- 
tered. His hair, touched by the moonlight, was soft and 
wavy, he looked very young and grief-stricken. For a 
moment the vision of him lying wounded and helpless 
in a trench, uncared for, shook her brave resolve. A 
great lump rose in her throat. She braced herself and 
said softly, “Gavin, Laddie !” 

Gavin leaped to his feet. “Auntie Elspie!” he cried 
in amazement, his eyes dazzled by the light, “why, you 
are dressed ! You’re not sick ?” he cried anxiously, taking 
the lamp from her hand. 

“No, no,” she said; “I’m jist all right. Put the lamp 
down, hinny, I want to talk with you.” She sat down on 
the edge of his bed and he placed the lamp on his high 
old dresser and came and sat beside her wonderingly. 

“I couldn’t help hearing you tossing about. You’re 
not sleepin’, Gavie, you’re worryin’, lad.” 

“No, no, Auntie Elspie,” he cried hastily, “I’m all right, 


214 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

I’m not sick. You go back to bed, do. You’ll catcK 
cold.” 

But the woman only gazed at him mournfully. '‘Eh, 
eh, hinny, I ken all about it,” she whispered, lapsing into 
broader Scotch in her agitation. “Ye can’t hide things 
from your Auntie Elspie. Ye’re wearyin’ to be away to 
the war, I ken as well as if ye telled me.” 

There was a wail in her voice that wrung Gavin’s 
heart. “Oh, Auntie Elspie,” he cried, “oh, no, no ! I’ll 
never leave you. I’ll not be going. I’m not wearying. 
I know what my duty is; and it’s here at home with 
you.” He was repeating his assurance incoherently, when 
she stopped him. 

“Gavie, there’s no need to tell your Auntie Elspie that 
you would do all that is in your power for us. I ken 
you’ve kept silence all these months for fear of giving us 
pain. But I’ve been watching you, and I guessed what 
ailed you. And it is what we would have, Gavie. We 
would not have you want to stay at home while others 
go to die for us to save our homes and lives. And indeed 
it’s proud I am this night, even if my heart is sore — 


She broke down a moment, and again Gavin firmly 
declared his decision. He could not deny he wanted to go 
to the Front he confessed, but maybe it was just a foolish 
love of adventure and it did not interfere with the fact 
that he was needed at home. 

“So I’ll jist stay here, Auntie Elspie,” he repeated, “I 
am needed here, and I would be ashamed to turn my back 
on you. I couldn’t be happy knowing you needed me, and 
I wasn’t here to take care of you all.” 

And so they argued the matter far into the night, 
Auntie Elspie insisting that he should go, and the boy 
declaring that he would not. She was reinforced shortly 
by her sisters. Auntie Flora had heard the low rumble 


“BLUE BONNETS !” 


21 S 

of voices and had seen the light in Gavin’s room. She 
wakened Janet, and fearing that Gavin’s strange conduct 
had culminated in an attack of some real illness, the two 
anxious old ladies hurriedly flung on some clothes and 
went down the hall to Gavin’s room. And there they 
found a strange scene, Elspie urging Gavin to enlist, and 
Gavin holding back and declaring that nothing would in- 
duce him to go to the war! 

It was the look in his two younger Aunts’ eyes, when 
the case was explained to them, that first shook Gavin’s 
resolution. Auntie Flora stood up tall and stately, and 
her face flushed proudly as she turned to Janet. “What 
did I tell ye !” she cried triumphantly, “I knew he wanted 
to go!” And Auntie Janet burst into tears, and hiding 
her face in the old shawl she had thrown round her shoul- 
ders she sobbed, “Aye, and I said it, too. I knew ye 
couldn’t be the kind that would want to stay at home, 
Gavie.” And Gavin comforted them in a state of speech- 
less wonder. It appeared that after all they had been 
waiting for him to express a desire to go and that their 
pride was quite equal to their grief ! 


CHAPTER XIII 


“The Plighted Ring” 

J IMMIE came home from school on Friday evening 
bounding in full of news. 

“Say, who do you s’pose’s gone and enlisted from Or- 
chard Glen now?” he demanded indignantly of Chris- 
tina, who was preparing supper in the bright, warm 
kitchen. 

“Mrs. Johnnie Dunn,” suggested his sister. But Jim- 
mie was in no mood for a joke. Each new enlistment 
from the community was to him a personal injury. 

“More unlikely than that!” he growled, throwing his 
heavy bag of books in the comer, and his wet mittens 
behind the stove, “it’s Gavin Grant, that’s who it is.” 

Christina stopped in the operation of taking a pan of 
hot biscuits from the oven. “Gavin Grant! Why! Are 
you sure, Jimmie?” 

“Course I’m sure. I saw him in town to-day. He’s 
joined the Blue Bonnets, and they’re going to Camp 
Borden, and I tell you it just makes a fellow sick, that’s 
what it does !” 

Jimmie did not explain just why Gavin’s joining the 
army should have such an effect upon his health and 
Christina paid no heed to his complaint. She was com- 
pletely taken by surprise. If there was a young man in 
Orchard Glen who had a good excuse for staying at home 
surely that young man was Gavin. And yet he was going, 
when it would be so easy to remain. She was not long 
216 


“THE PLIGHTED RING 5 


left to wonder over him. Her mother brought home the 
whole story of Gavin’s struggle from his proud and grief- 
stricken Aunts the very next day. Elspie Grant had come 
over to offer sympathy when her sons left her for the 
battle-field and Mary Lindsay could not rest until she had 
done the same for her old friend. So as next day was 
Saturday, Jimmie took her over to Craig-Ellachie in the 
cutter. 

She came home filled with the story of the long time 
Gavin had been yearning to go, but had remained silent 
for his Aunts’ sake, how he was making every prepara- 
tion for their comfort in his absence, how brave he was, 
and how proud they were of him, even though it was 
breaking their three old hearts to see him go. 

Christina listened to the recital in ever-deepening 
humiliation. She remembered how she had been dis- 
gusted with Gavin when he fled from before Piper 
Lauchie’s wrath, and how full of admiration she had 
been for Wallace Sutherland’s courage. She had played 
the part of a silly girl who could not see the character 
under the thin covering of appearances. Her humiliation 
was not made lighter by the remembrance that Wallace 
had given no smallest hint of a desire to enlist. 

There was nothing else talked of at the Red Cross 
rooms the next day. Mrs. Sutherland was quite severe 
in her condemnation of Gavin for going and leaving a 
farm and three helpless women who had brought him up 
and given him his chance in the world. 

“It is his plain duty to stay at home,” she said dis- 
tinctly. “It is nothing but a desire for adventure that is 
taking many of our young men away, when they are 
needed here to work the land. No young man with a 
farm should be allowed to enlist.” 

This was too much for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn, of course, 
and she proceeded to rid herself of the burden of it. 


2l8 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


“Well, my stars !” she declared loudly, her needle flying 
in and out in time to her words, “I would rather get down 
on my marrow bones and scrub for my living if I was the 
Grant Girls than keep a young man at home. Gavin 
Grant's duty ain’t at home any more than Trooper’s is. 
The Grant Girls’ll never want. Hughie Reid is just a 
brother to them, and he’s to work the farm. And the 
Grant Girls are as well fixed as any folks in this Hall. 
And let me ask yous folks what good our farms’ll be to 
us when the Germans gets here. Just tell me that, 
now ?” 

As usual, the Prime Minister had silenced the Mon- 
arch, and the latter took refuge in a royal and dignified 
silence that ignored the noisy usurper. 

“Christina, my dear,” Mrs. Sutherland said, “will you 
be so good as to fetch me another skein of this sweater- 
coat yarn from the storeroom?” Christina went obe- 
diently, inwardly hot and raging. She wanted to rush 
in by The Woman’s side and stand up for Gavin and tell 
how chivalrous and brave he really was. But how ridicu- 
lous she would look speaking up to Wallace’s mother in 
that fashion. And yet, it seemed as if some one had 
cast a reflection upon Sandy so much did it annoy 
her. 

She was unpacking the desired article from a bale, 
hidden by a pile of supplies which The Woman had 
brought out the evening before, when voices from the 
other side of the barrier reached her. 

“She won’t stay President long, I bet.” It was Tilly’s 
Voice and Tilly’s giggle accompanied it. “She’s started 
now to talk like the war was wrong and young men 
shouldn’t go.” 

“Everybody knows it’s all because Wallace won’t go,” 
answered Bell Brown. “Pa says Dr. McGarry won’t 


“THE PLIGHTED RING” 219 

speak at any more recruitin’ meetings nor anything be- 
cause he’s so ashamed.” 

“I don’t see how Christine Lindsay . . But Chris- 
tina had tiptoed out of her ambush and escaped into the 
main room with the yarn, her cheeks burning, her eyes 
unnaturally bright. 

Gavin went to camp at Niagara but was allowed to 
come back to work his farm for a month in the Sum- 
mer. The Grant Girls were as happy to have him again 
as if he had returned from the war, and with youth’s 
happy disregard of the future, they set themselves to 
have the gayest Summer that had ever shone down upon 
Craig-Ellachie, and folks who went there said there never 
was such fun as they had round the supper table with 
Gavin giving his Aunts’ military orders and they obeying 
them with military precision. 

Christina would have given much to be one of those 
guests. She wanted to show Gavin before he went that 
she admired his spirit, and was glad he wanted to go. 
But she felt diffident about going to Craig-Ellachie, and 
she shrewdly guessed that Gavin would never ask her. 

She saw him only at church, and how proudly the 
Aunties walked down the aisle with Gavin in his High- 
land Uniform to show them to their seat and sit at the end 
of the pew. And indeed they could scarcely keep their 
eyes off him during the service, and a fine sight he was to 
be sure, in his trim khaki coat and his gay kilt. And 
the worry had all gone from his face and he was his old 
smiling kindly self. He was too busy to come to any of 
the village festivities and Christina had no opportunity to 
speak to him except as he came down the church aisle. 
And though the other girls crowded around him she stood 
aloof, so strangely shy she had become of Gavin. 

Joanna and the other girls decided the young people 
must give Gavin a send-off such as had been given to all 


220 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


the boys and so they planned for a gathering on an 
evening when he came home for the last leave, and 
Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists once more joined 
amicably in a common cause. But Gavin was not to have 
the privilege of receiving a public farewell, a circum- 
stance that suited him well, for he had dreaded anything 
that would drag him into public notice. 

For one dark Autumn day, when the last blossom of 
the Grant Girls’ garden had drooped before the frost, the 
Blue Bonnets were suddenly called to go overseas. Gavin 
had come home just the night before for a week-end 
leave, and a telegram summoned him to rejoin his Bat- 
talion at once. There was a great stir at Craig-Ellachie. 
Hughie Reid hurried over as soon as the news reached 
him, and he sent one of his boys to fetch Mrs. Johnnie 
Dunn to help the Aunties through their trial, and Hughie 
himself got out his Ford car to take Gavin to Algonquin 
to catch the midnight train for Toronto. 

The weather seemed to be in accord with the hearts of 
the three bereaved old women, a cold rain came sweeping 
across the hills just as night fell and Gavin drove away 
from his old home and the loving arms that would have 
held him, into the storm and darkness, and the light of 
Craig-Ellachie went out with him. 

Christina had not heard of Gavin’s sudden call, and 
while he was driving away in the wind and rain, she was 
sitting by the fire winding a skein of yarn which Wallace 
Sutherland was holding. 

The sitting room was warm and bright, and had many 
pretty feminine touches, and there were plenty of easy 
chairs and cushions that Mary had contributed from time 
to time. The soft-shaded lamp-light fell on Christina’s 
bright hair as she bent over her yarn. Her mother had 
gone to bed early, they were alone and Wallace was 
watching Christina from his luxurious seat on the big 


“THE PLIGHTED RING’ 


221 


deep sofa, in perfect content. The wind howled around 
the corners of the old house, and the rain lashed the win- 
dow panes, but the comfort of the bright sitting-room 
and Christina's presence were only made more delightful 
by the contrast. 

Wallace sank down deeper into the sofa. He was in 
his happiest mood. He had worked quite steadily all 
Summer and had been so successful in the process of 
“Showing Uncle William" that that unreasonable old per- 
son had written quite a reasonable letter to his brother, 
saying that, maybe there was something in the young 
cub after all, and that if he really succeeded in demon- 
strating that he was good for something, even if it was 
only feeding the pigs, he, Uncle William, might be in- 
clined to pay him a visit, etc., etc. It was that etc. 
that so raised Wallace's spirits. He knew Uncle Wil- 
liam, oh, right down to the ground, he declared, and had 
no hesitation in assuring Christina that if everything went 
all right with his stock this Winter, Uncle William was 
his to do as he pleased with. He was very happy, and 
expected Christina to rejoice with him. She was natur- 
ally gay and ready to follow a merry lead, and Wallace 
enjoyed her companionship more than any one he had 
known for that very reason. But he could not deny 
that for some time she had not been such a good com- 
rade. She had to make an effort to-night to help him be 
gay over Uncle William’s complete undoing. She tried to 
be interested as he told all his good fortune, but was 
just a little relieved when John came in for a few minutes 
and began talking politics. 

She went to the kitchen for a plate of apples, leaving 
them discussing the Minister of Militia, and was taking 
down a plate from the high old cupboard in the kitchen, 
when she heard a sound as if some one were fumbling at 
the door. The big kitchen was empty, the damp day had 


222 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


been bad for Uncle Neil’s rheumatism, and he had gont, 
to bed early, it was almost too late for a visitor, and 
thinking it might be only the wind, Christina put down 
her plate and went to look if the outside porch door were 
slamming. 

She threw open the door and the rain and wind whirled 
in her face, and out of the wet and the darkness emerged 
a tall figure in a long khaki overcoat and a Highland 
bonnet. The bonnet came off immediately, and the sol- 
dier said in a soft Highland accent, '‘Good evening, Chris- 
tine.” 

“Oh, Gavin,” she cried in surprise, and a sudden un- 
reasonable joy. “Is it really you? Come away in. Are 
you wet ?” 

But Gavin still stood in the doorway. “No, I cannot 
come in,” he said hurriedly; “Hughie is waiting for me 
at the gate. He is taking me into Algonquin.” 

Christina looked past him into the darkness. “To 
Algonquin! Oh, Gavin, you’re not called away are 
you ?” 

“Yes, the Battalion is ordered to Halifax, we will likely 
be sailing at once. I did not know till this morning ; and 
I — ” his voice dropped to a whisper, “I just couldn’t go 
away without saying good-bye to you, Christine.” 

A gust of wind swayed Christina’s skirts, and Gavin 
stepped inside and closed the door, but stood holding the 
latch. 

“And your poor Aunties!” cried Christina. She was 
angry with herself the moment she said it, for a look 
of anguish passed quickly over Gavin’s face. 

“They are very brave,” he said simply. He paused, 
there was silence in the big warm kitchen. 

“Won’t you come in, just a minute, and say good-bye 
to John?” asked Christina. “Mother and Uncle Neil are 
gone to bed, but — ” 


THE PLIGHTED RING’ 


'‘No, I have no time to-night, but I could not go with- 
out seeing you, just once, and saying good-bye, ,, he whis- 
pered. 

Christina’s eyes suddenly stung with tears. “Oh, 
Gavin,” she faltered, “I — I don’t deserve it.” 

He shook his head to indicate that she was wrong, 
and again silence fell. Gavin glanced at his wrist watch. 
She noticed that his awkwardness had disappeared under 
his military training, he held himself with a new dig- 
nified bearing. “I must not be keeping you,” he 
said, but it seemed as if he could not go. He stood look- 
ing down at her and she could not mistake the look in 
Gavin’s eyes. Her own fell before them. 

“Oh,” she managed to whisper, “I have always wanted 
to tell you that I think it is so brave and so grand of you 
to go, and, . . . oh, I hope you’ll come back safe,” she 
ended, faltering, and Gavin still stood unable to speak and 
looked at her as if he could never take his eyes away. 

The loud, slow tick of the old clock marked off the 
minutes. 

Suddenly Gavin put his fingers under the collar of his 
coat. “Could you — would you mind taking this as a little 
keepsake ?” he whispered, handing her the regimental pin 
of the Blue Bonnets. She took it with grateful thanks. 
And then a sudden impulse came to her. 

“But, I ought to give you something in return.” 
She looked up and down her dress. She wore no orna- 
ment but an old-fashioned brooch of her mother’s fas- 
tening the throat of her soft blue dress. “I haven’t any- 
thing,” she said helplessly. She followed Gavin’s eyes 
that were fastened on her left hand. 

“Could you spare me that?” he whispered. It was a 
little old ring, one that Allister had sent her before he 
came home for his first visit, just plain gold with her 


224 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

initials carved on it. Christina slipped it off her finger 
eagerly. 

“Oh, it’s just a poor little, old thing, Gavin, but I’d be 
so proud to have it go to the war,” she cried. He took 
it, his face radiant. 

“Oh,” he cried, “I ought not to have asked you. I 
was too bold, perhaps, I shouldn’t — perhaps — he, — 
wouldn’t like it ?” 

Christina’s face flamed. “There is no one who has any 
right to say what I should do,” she said with sudden bold- 
ness. 

Gavin’s face lit up. He slipped the ring on his little 
finger. It would hardly go on, but he managed it. A 
line of the old song he had sung flashed through Chris- 
tina’s mind as he did it, something about the plighted ring 
the warrior wore, being crushed and wet with gore. 

“Oh, Gavin,” she whispered, the tears welling up into 
her eyes, “God bless you, and bring you home safe 
again.” 

A sharp whistle sounded from the gate where Hughie 
Reid was waiting impatiently in the rain. Gavin started 
as if from a dream. He held out his hand. “Good-bye, 
Christine,” he whispered, “you won’t forget me, will 
you ?” 

Christina put her hand into his. She shook her head ; 
she could not answer. He was going away, perhaps to 
his death, and she had not a word for him, and yet he 
was leaving her deliberately to another at the call of 
duty. Her heart was in a tumult of grief and self- 
abasement. She could only stand and look up at him, 
her eyes filled with tears, her lips trembling, and the 
next moment, Gavin had stooped, with the sudden bold- 
ness of a shy man, and kissed her. 

And then the door was flung open and shut again, and 
he was gone into the storm and darkness, and Christina 


“THE PLIGHTED RING” 225 

was left standing motionless, gazing at the closed door. 

It was a long time before she found courage to return 
to the sitting-room. Her heart was throbbing with grief 
and at the same time a wild exultation that she could not 
understand and had no time to analyze. She did not even 
attempt to answer Wallace's raillery as to the length of 
time she had been away, or John’s as to why she had 
stayed in the cellar long enough to eat all the apples 
which she found she had forgotten to bring. The event 
had been too stupendous for her to come down to the 
commonplace. And at last Wallace grew just a little 
piqued over her absent-minded air and went home early 
very much to Christina’s relief. 

It was the week after Gavin had gone out into the 
storm and Christina was still going about in a sort of 
daze, with feelings still unanalyzed, when she remem- 
bered that Friday would be Jimmie’s eighteenth birthday. 
Jimmie should have been through school, but he had done 
that disgraceful thing that, so far, no Lindsay had ever 
done ; he had failed in his examinations the Summer be- 
fore. Had it not been for the boys’ going to war, the 
great event that absorbed the mind of the family, Jimmie 
might have fared badly. As it was he received a solemn 
warning from John, and went back to school in the Fall 
very unwillingly. 

“Life is so queer,” Christina was constrained to say. 
“I was always dying to go to school and couldn’t, and 
Jimmie is dying to stay out of it and can’t.” 

“It’s Allister’s money that’s spoiled the silly kid,” 
grumbled John. “That and the war. I tell you, Chris- 
tina, we always thought it was a dreadful misfortune to 
be poor, and wished we had money, but I am beginning 
to think that we ought to thank the Lord that we have 
had to do without. Jimmie has never done very well at 


226 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

school just because it has been made easy for him to get 
there.” 

“I’m afraid Allister’s money is not likely to do any of 
us much more harm, anyway,” Christina said to herself, 
remembering another rather despondent letter from him. 
She could not quite agree with John that money was not 
a very good thing to have. It would have opened for 
her the road to the college halls, but it had been denied. 
And yet she was not unhappy. Something sang in her 
heart these days, the memory of a certain farewell 
at the back door in the wind and the rain and darkness, 
a memory that was all light and glory. 

But Jimmie was still unsettled and dissatisfied with 
school, and Christina said that she would please him by 
making him a birthday cake. She would ice it with 
plenty of thick almond paste, his favourite, and put his 
initials on it and the date. It was a very handsome 
and tempting confection indeed, when she put it on the 
pantry shelf in a secluded spot where he would not see 
it until the right moment arrived. 

The kitchen was still filled with its spicy fragrance 
when there came a quick footfall in the porch and a 
knock at the door. Christina opened it to meet a slim 
young soldier who strode into the room and saluted 
smartly. She stood looking at him in stupefied silence 
for a moment, and then she dropped upon a chair and 
put her head down on the kitchen table. 

“Oh, Jimmie ! Oh, Jimmie !” she sobbed. “How could 
you ?” 

But the new recruit caught her round the waist and 
waltzed her across the room, and then, snatching the 
butcher-knife from the table, he presented arms and 
saluted and posed all in such an absurd fashion that in 
spite of her grief she smiled. 

“Go right back into the shed till I tell mother,” she 


“THE PLIGHTED RING” 227 

exclaimed, “she mustn’t see you till she has had warn- 
ing.” 

Jimmie went out and hid himself, just a little sub- 
dued. Evidently his gallant act, the thing that every- 
body had admired in Trooper, had taken on a different 
colour when performed by him. 

He had little opportunity to reflect upon his act. There 
was hardly time for sorrow before Jimmie was gone; he 
had been put in a draft for a Battalion already in England 
and to his huge delight he was sent overseas almost im- 
mediately. It seemed as if this, her baby’s going, was 
almost more than Mrs. Lindsay could bear, and Chris- 
tina was more and more called upon to be a comforter 
and a bearer of burdens. 

It was not the fear of gas nor bomb nor German bullet 
that kept Jimmie’s mother wakeful at night, but the pes- 
tilence that walked in darkness, waylaying the souls of 
young men. Terrible tales of brave boys falling before 
an enemy more to be dreaded than all the frightfulness 
of the Hun came back to Canada. It was this living 
Death that stalked through the camps of England, and 
behind the lines in France and Flanders, that made the 
mother’s heart sick with fear. 

As she watched her mother’s silent suffering, Chris- 
tina’s soul began, again, to ask questions. What was the 
meaning of that psalm that Grandpa had read when 
Sandy and Neil went way, and, later, when Jimmie left? 
Did it mean anything? And if it did, why could it not 
bring comfort to her mother’s sorely-tried heart ? 

Through all the days of Christina’s loneliness and 
anxiety there was no one so kind to her as Wallace’s 
mother. Mrs. Sutherland made a point of selecting 
Christina for her special helper at Red Cross meetings, 
and Christina could not but notice the significance of her 
attentions. 


228 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


“You are such a comfort, Christine,” she declared one 
day when the girl handed her back a sock with a dropped 
stitch deftly picked up. “Your mother is a fortunate 
woman. I wish I had a daughter like you 1” 

Christina’s cheeks grew scarlet, and she was thankful 
that the clatter of sewing machines and the noise of Mrs. 
Johnnie Dunn’s orders secured them from being over- 
heard. 

But indeed, she could not shut her eyes to the fact that 
all events pointed in the direction so prettily indi- 
cated, again and again, by Wallace’s mother. Wallace 
was succeeding beyond his own expectations, and Uncle 
William was growing more lamb-like every day. The 
road to success had surely opened out for Christina. Her 
Dream Knight had ridden up to her very door. He was 
possessed of a fine house, and broad acres, and had pros- 
pects of great wealth. He was handsome and gay and 
debonair, and what more could any human girl ask ? 

And in the face of all this grand good fortune that 
unreasonable Christina Lindsay was more dissatisfied and 
restless than she had ever been in all her life. She 
reasoned with herself and scolded herself all to no avail. 
That foolish heart of hers, that had always got in the way 
of her worldly prospects, was standing stubbornly right in 
the very highway of success. 

Here was the great opportunity of her life, such pros- 
pects as might dazzle any Orchard Glen girl, and its 
glory was all blotted out by the memory of a tall figure in 
a khaki coat, coming suddenly out of the wind and rain 
of a dark night. Wallace had sat by Christina’s side that 
night in the warmth and shelter of the fireside, but though 
Christina did not quite realise it yet, her heart had gone 
out into the storm after Gavin, and could never come 
back. It was still following him over the perils of the 
high seas and into the blood and carnage of the battle- 


“THE PLIGHTED RING” 229 

field, and it valued farms and stock and fine houses les9 
than the dust. 

And so Christina was more dissatisfied than she 
had ever been in her life, and she lay awake nights 
wondering what she should do, and how she could pos- 
sibly extricate herself from the impossible position in 
which she found herself. 

And to make matters worse or better, she did not know 
which, Gavin wrote to her, and she wrote him long letters 
in reply. And she grew into the habit of running over 
the hills to Craig-Ellachie to cheer the Grant Girls, and, 
of course, they talked of their soldier-hero all the time, 
and of nothing else. 

The Aunties literally lived by his letters. Everything 
was dated by them. 

“We started yon crock o’ butter jist the day Gavie’s 
first letter came from France,” Auntie Janet would say. 
“It’s time it was finished.” 

“Gavie’s letter was a bit late this week,” they an- 
nounced at another time, “so we didn’t start the ironin’ 
till it came. It jist seemed as if we couldn’t settle 
down.” 

Gavin’s letters were certainly worth waiting for, Chris- 
tina had to confess. He wrote much easier than he spoke, 
and his happiness in being permitted to write to her at 
all filled them with a quiet humour. Christina’s eyes 
searched them just a little wistfully for any hint of the 
feeling he had displayed in his farewell. But there was 
none. Gavin was too much the true gentleman to presume 
on that parting. He told her he had the little ring safe, 
and that it was his most precious possession, but beyond 
that he did not refer to that last evening. There was never 
a hint of hardship, even after he reached the Front, and 
was in many a desperate encounter. It was only all joy 
that he was able to be in the struggle for right. He had 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


230 

just one anxiety and that was lest his Aunts be lonely, 
and he wondered if she would be so good as to comfort 
them just a little when she could. 

And Christina wrote him long letters in return and felt 
like a criminal in her double dealing. She knew she was 
wrong but she could not make a decision. On the one 
hand was all that she could hope this world could offer, 
and on the other nothing but a true and gallant heart. 
She was angry and ashamed of herself and very restless, 
and withal, in spite of herself, quite unreasonably happy. 

Mary had been writing all Winter urging her to come 
for a little visit, and see Hughie Junior, who was a 
marvellous baby, with wonderful feats to his credit that 
no human baby had ever yet performed. But Christina 
put the tempting invitations aside, feeling she must not 
leave her mother in her deep anxiety. 

And then there came letters from overseas that brought 
a wonderful relief from her mother’s worry, and light- 
ened greatly the burdens of the night. 

For many and many a night her mother sat sleepless by 
her window, looking up at the stars that hung above her 
home and that also watched above her soldier sons. She 
had no fears for Neil, a thousand might fall at his side 
and ten thousand at his right hand, but it would not come 
nigh him. And Sandy, — Sandy was honest, and true, 
and as fine a lad as marched in the Canadian Army, but 
he was young and careless and gay, and how did she 
know what temptations might assail him ? And there was 
Jimmie! Night after night she lay awake, thinking of 
Jimmie, praying and agonising for him. He was so 
young, such a big overgrown baby, how could he come 
through unscathed ? 

And then there came from France this great relief 
from her dread. Jimmie’s draft had reached England 
and Neil had managed to get himself transferred to Jim- 


THE PLIGHTED RING’ 


niie’s Battalion. It was going to France immediately, 
and France was safer than England, Neil wrote, from 
certain kinds of dangers. And his mother was not to 
worry, for he had Jimmie right beside him and he would 
look after the boy and see that no harm could come to 
him. And Sandy wrote that Neil had refused a chance 
to take the officer’s course and a Commission, because he 
would not leave Jimmie. 

Full of joy and gratitude, Christina watched her 
mother’s eyes grow bright again, and so she left Mitty 
in charge of her many affairs and took the train for a 
week’s visit to Port Stewart. 

Mary’s house was as pretty as ever, but had lost much 
of its immaculate tidiness. For Hughie Lindsay MacGil- 
livray’s wardrobe and appointments overflowed into every 
room. But Hughie himself was all he had been reported 
and more, and Christina fell down and worshipped his 
apple blossom face and his dimples at the first sight. 

“And tell me all about Wallace Sutherland,” demanded 
Mary, between raptures. “Isn’t it grand that he’s doing 
such fine things with the Ford place. Why, Christine, 
you’ll be a wealthy woman some day !” 

“Oh, hush !” cried Christina in distress. “Why, Mary, 
I haven’t even been asked to live at the Ford place yet, 
and it’s positively shameless to talk about, about any- 
thing, yet !” 

“Nonsense !” laughed the practical Mary. “You know 
perfectly well that Wallace is in love with you, and that 
you are as good as engaged.” 

“He is not! I am not!” denied Christina excitedly. 
“Don’t you talk like that, Mary, I — I can’t bear it — ” 

“Why, Christine, why, mercy! I didn’t mean any- 
thing !” cried Mary, alarmed and amazed at the sight of 
tears in Christina’s eyes. “Why, what’s the matter, 
dear ? You haven’t quarrelled with Wallace, have you ?” 


232 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


“Oh, no, of course not,” said Christina dolefully, re- 
gaining her composure. 

“And his mother’s just lovely to you now, isn’t she?” 

“Yes.” 

“And, well, what’s wrong? Why, any girl I know, 
even here in town, would give anything for your pros- 
pects !” 

But Christina could not explain her sudden outburst. 
It had astonished herself as much as Mary. She knew 
that now was the great opportunity to confess to Mary 
that Wallace had fallen far below her high standard, but 
the memory of the Ford place and all it meant closed 
her lips. It seemed too much to give up, and she went 
home with the battle between her heart and her head 
still raging. 


CHAPTER XIV 


“Over the Top” 

T HE Lindsay boys had been about a month on the 
battle line when, beside their weekly letters, there 
came a splendid big fat envelope to the home people, con- 
taining a letter from each of the three. 

There had been many letters from the boys, gay and 
bright and full of cheer, but none that contained such 
comfort as these. And the assurance they brought put 
new life into the mother and Christina’s loving eyes noted 
a new energy in all her movements. 

She read Jimmie’s letter first. It was headed “Back of 
the Front,” and was largely taken up with a list of the 
wonderful things they had had to eat for their Christmas 
dinner. It was a bang-up spread, sure enough, and with 
the boxes sent from home on top of it all, they ate so 
much that they couldn’t even have run away if Fritz had 
come over to pay them a visit. 

But the important part of the letter was the descrip- 
tion of a Sunday afternoon he and Neil and Sandy spent 
together behind the lines. It was great having that day 
with Sandy. Of course he and Neil were always to- 
gether, for Jimmie wished to assure them all at home 
that he couldn’t blow his nose without Neil standing over 
him to see that he did it just right. But a day with Sandy 
was a treat, for besides being in another quarter he was 
an officer, and as hard to get at as the Kaiser. But they 
arranged a meeting this Sunday, and Jimmie guessed 
233 


234 IN ORCHARD GLEN 

that Sandy bust all the red tape in the British army do- 
ing it. 

“Neil and I had just come out of our ground-hog’s 
hole and we had nearly all France on our uniforms, and 
Sandy was such a swell, all dolled up like a field-marshal 
that Neil said perhaps we oughtn’t to be so familiar 
as to salute him. But we got a bath and got fumigated 
too, and it was real Christmas holidays not to have to 
scratch for a whole day. We had to salute Sandy when 
there was any one else round, but when we got him 
alone I paid him up for all the respect and I wiped the 
floor with a few yards of his officer’s uniform. I tell you, 
Christina, he can’t put me down now the way he used to. 
I’m as hard as nails and I’m as tall as he is. Sandy said 
I could be court-martialed and shot for it, but Neil 
refereed and saw that justice was done. I started out 
to tell you and Mother about that Sunday we had to- 
gether, but I’ll leave it to Neil, he can do it better than I 
can, but I want Mother to know that I agree with every- 
thing he says, and she needn’t be scared about me out 
here. I’m all right.” 

“So don’t cry, Dear, I’m all right here. 

Oh, it’s just like bein’ at hame.” 

Sandy’s letter told still more about the meeting; but 
Neil’s letter went right to the heart of the matter. “I 
wish you could have seen us at our Battalion service. 
Mother, that Sunday morning. It wasn’t very far back, 
and we could hear the guns booming as we stood in 
a quiet spot behind a shattered little village. We sang 
Taint not for fear, His arms are near,’ the last hymn 
we sang in Orchard Glen church, and after it was over we 
met Sandy and we went off together, Sandy and Jimmie 
and I, to have one of our old-time Sunday talks, just as 
we used to wander off to the fields after Sunday School, 


“OVER THE TOP ! 


we two, with Jimmie tagging at our heels. It wasn’t 
much like home, though, just a desolate shell-torn corner 
behind the ragged remnants of a barn, but, somehow, the 
quiet took us back to Orchard Glen and home, and you 
seemed there. And we got talking about the contrast be- 
tween our life out here and back there and the tempta- 
tions all around that were so new. And we each stood 
up, so to speak, and told our experience, like a good old 
Methodist class-meeting, that would have delighted 
Grandpa if he could have heard it. And Sandy said that 
when he saw the devastation Sin could bring, it had 
made him want to be a preacher more than ever before. 
And then it was Jimmie’s turn, and he confessed that 
something about military camp life gave him a feeling of 
physical nausea at first. For a month he didn’t want to go 
beyond the Y. M. C. A. tent, and then he began to get 
used to it all, but he never had the smallest inclination 
to mix in it. He’s the same bright, clean boy that left 
you, Mother, a great deal older and wiser, but no sadder, 
and you need not fear for him. We were saying that 
it was you who had given us our strength against temp- 
tation, because you never set anything but the highest 
before us and Sandy remarked that you had buckled our 
armour on tight before you sent us out to battle, and then 
Jimmie said, ‘It’s like being in one of the Tanks. You 
ride right over everything in the biggest show the Huns 
can pull off and nothing can touch you.’ ” 

‘T think that was a fine description of what you gave 
us, don’t you, Mother? You had no money to give us, 
but you built and riveted a Tank with your years of hard 
toil, and you put us all inside and we are safe there for- 
ever. And so you must not worry about us. For even if 
we are called upon to pay the price, what does that mat- 
ter?” 

When the letter was read and reread, Christina was 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


236 

surprised to see her mother put it carefully away in the 
pocket of her skirt ; and putting on her bonnet and cloak, 
she slipped out quietly and went away across the Short 
Cut towards the village. Christina wondered that she 
had said nothing about where she was going and stood 
at the window watching her with anxious loving eyes 
and wondering if she were wearing warm enough cloth- 
ing as the wind swayed her bent old figure. She supposed 
her mother had gone to see Granny Minns, but Joanna 
dropped in with some Red Cross work on her way up 
to Mrs. Johnnie Dunn’s for an afternoon’s sewing, and 
told Christina that she had seen her mother sitting in the 
churchyard beside her father’s grave. 

Christina’s eyes filled with tender tears; she under- 
stood. Her mother had gone with the boys’ letters to 
share with their father the glad news that had lifted 
the burden from her heart. 

Christina read all Neil’s letter to Grandpa that night. 
It was no light task, but she could not bear that he miss 
a word. She had her reward, for he sang the 103rd 
psalm at the top of his lungs before he settled for the 
night, and the Hindmost Hymn louder and clearer than 
he had ever sung it since the day the boys went away. 

And the next morning he read again the 91st psalm, and 
his old shaking voice rose high and strong as he came to 
the words that spoke the triumph over all life’s ills, and 
for the first time in her life Christina understood them. 
“Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the 
fowler and from the noisome pestilence. . . . Thou shall 
not be afraid for the terror by night nor for the arrow 
that flieth by day nor for the pestilence that walketh in 
darkness.” 

The promise was literally true! The white Comrade 
walked beside her warrior brothers and they were safe. 
And Christina learned that morning that there was only 


‘‘OVER THE TOP’ 


237 


one thing in life that mattered after all. For even though 
the boys had had wealth and power and great fame and 
social position none of these would have brought any 
real comfort to the heart of the mother and grandfather 
at that moment. The knowledge that they were safe 
from sin and its power was everything. And those things 
upon which she had set her heart and counted of supreme 
importance did not weigh at all in the great crisis of life. 

And right on that day of exultation, when the psalm 
was still repeating itself triumphantly in their ears, the 
dreaded word came from the battlefield. Mr. Holmes re- 
ceived the telegram at the little office behind the store. He 
had been very distant with Mr. Sinclair ever since he 
joined the Methodists against the Presbyterians, but he 
forgot all about their estrangement in the terrible task 
that faced him of carrying the news to the Lindsay family. 
So he went hurriedly to the Manse with his heavy burden, 
and Mr. Sinclair did not seem to think it strange that he 
should come. The two men left their work and went up 
the hill to the Lindsay home walking close together like 
children who were afraid and were trying to give each 
other support. 

And there by the bright fireside, sitting in the sunny 
window, where her scarlet geraniums bloomed as gay 
as the poppies in Flanders Field, they found Christina 
and told her the news: that Neil and Jimmie had gone 
over the top, together, very eager and glad, and that they 
would not come back. 

Christina was thankful afterwards for the merciful 
numbness, that was like an anaesthetic in a painful 
operation. She had a feeling that she would awaken soon 
and realise fully the terrible calamity that had befallen, 
but just now, if she kept still it would not hurt so 
much. 

She was filled with wonder at her mother’s courage. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


238 

Even in the first moments of anguish she showed not a 
moment of wavering faith. And she was more filled 
with wonder at Grandpa. Neil had been Grandpa's 
special pride, and she was afraid of the result of the 
news. She went to the bright comer of the kitchen 
where he sat and tried tremblingly to make him under- 
stand, holding back her own grief by main force, that she 
might tell it gently. He made no outcry, spoke no word 
of grief ; but for an hour afterwards he sat quite still in 
deep thought, and she heard him saying over and over to 
himself, as though trying to grasp the magnitude of his 
sorrow, “Both o’ them! Not the two o’ them, surely?” 
And then after pondering a while, “Aye, the two o' 
them !” 

But when she put him to bed that night, dumb and 
sick with anguish herself, she could not but notice that 
Grandpa was acting strangely. He had an air of sup- 
pressed excitement, as though he were hiding some good 
news. She did not guess what it was until she had left 
him, and overheard him saying, “Aye, aye, I’ll see them 
all the sooner. All the sooner!” in a tone of exulta- 
tion. She did not hand him the hymn book, thinking he 
would not want to sing, but when she peeped in later to 
see if it were time to take away the lamp, she was 
amazed to hear him singing very softly and low, lest any 
overhear him, but singing, nevertheless, in the house of 
mourning, the Hindmost Hymn, 

“On the other side of Jordan, in the sweet fields of Eden, 

Where the tree of life is blooming, there is rest for you.” 

For Grandpa had travelled far on the upward road, 
and Christina did not realise that death was a small inci- 
dent in the life of one who stood just at the door into the 
other world. 

In the morning when she went in and ran up his win- 


“OVER THE TOP” 


239 

dow blind to the top to let in the sunlight, he was lying 
as she had left him the night before, with the little orange- 
covered book held loosely in his cold hands. For 
Grandpa had sung the Hindmost Hymn for the last time 
and was even now singing the First Hymn in a new Book 
away in the sweet fields of Eden, where there is no more 
death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither is there any 
more pain. 

Christina had no time for her own grief, so busy she 
was comforting her mother, cheering Uncle Neil, sus- 
taining John and writing consoling letters to the absent 
ones. Sometimes she was so occupied that she almost 
forgot the terrible blow that had fallen, and then it 
would come upon her with an unbelievable shock that 
Neil and Jimmie were dead, — gone forever out of the 
world ! 

It was something her heart would not accept. How 
could it be, it argued, that Neil, so strong and steady 
and full of high purpose, and Jimmie, so radiant and 
full of life, could be lying dead in the mud of a trench? 
It was unbelievable. And at last she came to understand, 
through watching with her mother, whose faith leaped 
over even this barrier of death, that the instincts of her 
heart were right. Jimmie and Neil were not dead. They 
were gone, somewhere, beyond her sight, but they were 
still living and moving and working as they had done here 
on earth. Some fault of vision, some failure of the 
senses made it impossible for her to communicate with 
them. But they were there, and alive! Her mother 
was sure of that. And Grandpa was right, he had met 
them the sooner for their untimely call to the Life Be- 
yond. 

Allister came home as soon as the news about Neil and 
Jimmie reached him. He stayed a week with them, com- 
forting his mother and Uncle Neil, helping John about 


240 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


the barn, and trying to keep Christina from going too 
often to Grandpa’s empty room. He brought a long let- 
ter from Ellen, offering to come home just as soon as 
the hospital authorities would spare her. She was get- 
ting on wonderfully well, Allister reported, and had de- 
termined, should the war continue, that she would offer 
herself as a Red Cross nurse, but had decided to come 
home if she were needed. 

Christina was longing for her elder sister’s presence 
and help, but the remembrance of Neil’s sacrifice for 
Jimmie made her ashamed of the thought. So she wrote 
bravely to Ellen bidding her stay until she finished her 
course. 

On the evening before Allister left, he and Christina 
sat by the fire talking, long after the others had gone 
to bed. Wallace had been there earlier in the evening, 
and to Christina’s amazement Allister did not share in 
the universal admiration for him. 

“He’s got money, that young chap, Christine,” he 
said. ‘‘But money isn’t everything, girl, remember 
that.” 

“But you like Wallace, don’t you ?” asked Christina in 
surprise. 

“Oh, I guess he’s all right. But he’s got things too 
easy. And he’ll want to get them easy all his life or he’ll 
kick over the traces.” 

Christina was not conscious of any feeling of resent- 
ment. She did not even take the trouble to attempt to 
defend Wallace, and Allister seemed surprised. 

“Yes, I thought money was the whole thing,” he 
went on, “and now the war has made me a poor man. 
I’ve got the farm I had when I went West first, and 
I’ve got something more, I’ve got a pocketful of debts 
that will take me years to pay off. But, I guess I’m 
about as well off in some ways as I ever was.” 


“OVER THE TOP 5 


Christina would have been very much dismayed at this 
some months earlier, but in the face of the stupendous 
events of her life the loss of property or even of the 
chance of wealth seemed trivial. She said so to Allister 
and was glad to find that he agreed with her. 

“I found that out since I was home last/’ he declared. 
“I thought you lacked ambition because you always gave 
up your chance in life to this one and the other one. 
But you were the wise one. Money, and gettin’ on in the 
world and all that don’t amount to much after all. And 
if money is all this fellow of yours has, mind you, that 
ain’t enough. It might do for some girls, but let me tell 
you, it won’t satisfy you.” 

As the dark days of the war dragged on, Christina 
found her talent for comforting others sadly needed. 
For her own family were only the forerunners of many 
another stricken home. 

Burke was the next to fall, and little Mitty was left 
alone to struggle with Granny and poverty and grief, and 
Christina needed all her strength to bring her through the 
trial. 

And the next was Trooper. He went over the top 
in a gallant raid of the Princess Pats, calling on his 
comrades to follow, and it seemed to those who had 
known him, that somewhere he must still be going on, 
gay and bright and fearless, always calling on other high 
hearts to come after him. 

Joanna bore his going like a soldier’s wife. She never 
walked quite so erect again, and her jet black hair began 
to turn grey, but she was even more faithful in her work 
at the Red Cross meetings, and she and The Woman 
grew firmer friends than ever in their common grief. 

Christina went about among the stricken ones, easing 
her own grief in comforting others. But she had one 
ever present trouble for which she could receive no com- 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


242 

fort on any side. Every day the falseness of her attitude 
towards Wallace Sutherland weighed more heavily upon 
her honest heart. And how she was going to tell him of 
the change in her she did not know. How was she going 
to tell him that, though he had once been her hero, her 
ideal True Knight, that he had failed to live up to her 
high standard, and that another, a real hero, who had 
left her at the call of duty, had, all unwittingly, slipped 
into his place ? 

And then an event happened that made it unnecessary 
for her to tell him. It was the news that came one early 
day in Spring, when all the world was a wild rush of 
wind and water, and blinding sunshine, — the word that 
Gavin had been killed. 

By a strange chance it was Wallace, himself, who 
brought the news to Christina. When Mr. Holmes heard 
the dread message ticked off on the telegraph machine, he 
went straight to Mr. Sinclair, again, with his burden of 
dismay and grief. And, unable to bear the heavy news 
alone, the minister went over to see if Dr. McGarry 
would help him carry the terrible burden to Craig- 
Ellachie. 

Mr. Holmes kept the dread secret to himself until 
they had time to deliver it, fearing that the Grant Girls 
might hear it from another source. So the news had not 
reached the Lindsay farm in the evening when Wallace 
came up the hill to see Christina. 

He could not but notice a growing change in her man- 
ner towards him, but he had put it down to her grief over 
the loss of her brothers. One of Christina’s charms in his 
eyes had been her independence and her evident indiffer- 
ence as to whether what she did or said should please 
him or otherwise, but he thought it was high time she was 
showing some warmth of feeling and instead she had 
been strange and cold and aloof recently. And Wallace, 


OVER THE TOP 5 


accustomed to have everything arranged just as he 
wanted it, was beginning to feel somewhat ill-used. He 
felt that, though Christina were so heartbroken over 
Jimmie and Neil, she ought to show more consideration 
for him. And to-night he had made up his mind to ask 
her to share the Ford place with him. He had quite 
decided that there could never be any one like Christina 
for him, and he felt sure that when they were really 
engaged she would be more like her old self, and they 
would be as happy as they were in the beginning. 

Christina was sitting in the warm corner by the sitting- 
room stove, knitting a sock for Gavin when he entered. 
The room was bright and pleasant, and Wallace felt very 
happy when he flung himself luxuriously upon the deep 
sofa. But Christina was graver than she had ever been. 
She was sorry for him and was blaming herself bitterly; 
she had laid a snare for her own feet and now she was in 
desperate straits to get out of it. 

Wallace saw her evident distress and supposed she had 
heard of Gavin, and was disturbed for his Aunts. 

“Awful thing, this, for the poor old Grant Girls,” he 
remarked, sympathetically. 

Christina stopped in the act of sitting down, and 
straightened herself quickly, as though she had been 
struck a blow. 

“What ?” She uttered the word in a fearful whisper, 
but the young man felt she was showing only the natural 
agitation she must feel, remembering Jimmie and Neil. 

“Didn’t you hear? Gavin’s killed,” he said con- 
cisely. 

Christina stood and looked at him stupidly. “What 
did you say ?” she asked in a dazed fashion. 

“Gavin, — Gavin Grant,” he repeated wonderingly, “he’s 
been killed. They just got the telegram to-night, and Mr. 
Sinclair and Uncle Peter have gone to tell the poor old 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


244 

Aunts — ” he stopped, struck by the look in her face. She 
had turned perfectly white, even to her lips, and sat down, 
slowly and dazedly. She picked up her knitting, looked 
at it a moment, foolishly, and then laid it down with a 
bewildered air. 

Wallace got up suddenly from the sofa. “Christine !” 
he cried in alarm. “What’s the matter? Don’t — don’t 
look like that! I didn’t mean to frighten you. Oh, 
Christina, was Gavin? — Oh, I didn’t know! What does 
it mean to you ?” he cried in sharp dismay. 

She looked at him with honest, stricken eyes. “It 
means everything to me, Wallace,” she said simply. 
“Everything in the world,” telling the bald truth, in this 
supreme moment, without an effort. And when she had 
said it, a great billow of darkness came rolling across 
the room and surged over her. She heard Wallace calling 
for her mother, heard Uncle Neil run in from the kitchen, 
and then sank away into a great silence and peace. 

They tried to make her stay in bed the next day, but 
she insisted upon going to see the Grant Girls with her 
mother. The fields were too wet and soft tc be crossed, 
so Christina drove Dolly in the old buck-board. Craig- 
Ellachie was all sunshine, and the windows were alight 
with blossoms, scarlet geraniums and great waxy be- 
gonias, pink and white and crimson, were in every sunny 
nook and corner, and purple hyacinths and pure white 
Easter lilies filled the old kitchen with fragrance. The 
garden, too, showed signs of beauty, for already the first 
crocus had pushed its brave little head through the brown 
earth of the flower beds. 

But the Grant Girls had lost the Spring-time bloom of 
their youth. An untimely frost had smitten down the 
one flower of their hearts. They were not girls any 
more; three stricken old women sat in the wide bright 


OVER THE TOP’ 


kitchen among the flowers in a bewilderment of grief too 
deep for tears. 

Hughie Reid and his wife were there, and Mr. Sin- 
clair and Joanna, and several other friends from the vil- 
lage. And out in the summer kitchen Mrs. Johnnie Dunn 
had blackened and polished the stove that did not need 
polishing, and was now madly scrubbing the floor that 
did not need scrubbing in the least, the tears all the 
while streaming down her face. Everything that loving 
hands could do in the house and barn was done, and the 
Aunties sat about in unaccustomed idleness, like lost 
children who had suddenly found themselves in strange 
surroundings, and were even afraid to speak. 

And Christina sat beside them, dumb with her grief 
and theirs, and not even daring to whisper to them that 
her heart was lying with theirs, “Somewhere in France.” 

It seemed a very little thing, in the face of their stupen- 
dous loss, when the news came that Gavin had died a very 
glorious death, that he would have been given the Vic- 
toria Cross had he lived, and that they were sending it to 
Auntie Elspie. He had held back a rush of the enemy, 
alone and single-handed, until his comrades got to a place 
of safety. He had stayed on in a desperate position, 
working his machine gun, while the world rocked beneath 
him and the mad heavens raged with shot and shell 
above him, had held on though he was wounded again 
and again, saying between his teeth, “Stand Fast, Craig- 
Ellachie! ,, And then a shell had come and the gallant 
stand was over. But he had saved the Blue Bonnets 
from destruction, and spared many lives in losing his 
own. 

The Aunties held up their poor bowed heads, as Mr. 
Sinclair read them the splendid story. They knew Gavie 
would do something great, and it was just the way he 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


246 

would have wished to go, Auntie Elspie said tremu- 
lously. But the light had gone out of their lives, and it 
was small comfort that it had blazed so gloriously in the 
going. 


CHAPTER XV 


The Garden Blooms Again 

T HE day that Gavin’s picture appeared in the Algon- 
quin paper with an account of the gallant deed in 
which he had given his life, Christina received a letter 
in an unknown handwriting. 

Mitty brought it up to her room on a sunny April after- 
noon, where she was sitting, trying to interest herself 
in some sewing for baby Hugh. She laid the letter aside 
while she finished her work, too indifferent even to open 
it, but when the last button-hole was fashioned in the 
dainty little muslin dress she remembered it. 

She opened it slowly, noticing with some interest that it 
was from the Front, and then she suddenly sat up very 
straight and read the written pages greedily. The letter 
was signed, Harry Kent, and was from a comrade of 
Gavin’s in the Blue Bonnets, a boy whom he had often 
mentioned in his letters to Christina. 

And inside was a letter from Gavin himself sealed in a 
separate envelope. The first was a formal note from a 
shy boy. 

“Dear Miss Lindsay : I hope you won’t mind if I take 
the liberty to write to you, though I am a stranger. 
Gavin Grant and I were pals, and when he went up to the 
Front for the last time he gave me the letter I am en- 
closing, and he asked me to mail it to you. We knew 
his company was going into a hot place, and he said he 
247 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


248 

did not think he would get back. So he wrote you this 
letter and when I heard he was killed I said I would 
mail it to you. Gavin was the finest fellow I ever knew. 
He was always singing and he taught the fellows a lot 
of songs. There was one he was always singing, it was 
called a ‘Warrior Bold/ and he was singing it that morn- 
ing just before the Boche came over. The fellows in 
our Company would rather we had all gone West than 
Gavin, he was worth them all put together. ...” 

There was more about what Gavin had done in that 
last dread struggle. But Christina could not take the 
time to read it. She opened Gavin’s letter reverently, with 
trembling hands. The blinding tears would permit her 
to make out only a few sentences at a time. 

“I wrote you a letter last night,” it said, “and I hope 
you will not think I am too bold to be writing you an- 
other to-night. But we are going up into a rather bad 
place to-night and if I do not come back, I want to send 
you a good-bye message. I have never been able to tell 
you how much you have always been to me. I could not 
even write it in a letter. I have always been afraid I 
would offend you. But I thought you would not mind 
that I told you if I never came back. You have always 
been so far above me, that I did not have the courage 
to try to go with you. And then somebody else came, 
and I knew I had no chance then. But you have always 
been my girl in spite of all that, ever since the day you 
filled my pail with your berries to save me from a thrash- 
ing. I was always singing about you when I sang that 
old song, 

“ ‘My love is young and fair, 

My love has golden hair, 

And eyes so blue and heart so true 
That none with her compare.’ 


THE GARDEN BLOOMS AGAIN 249 

“It was partly because you were so much to me that 
I wanted to enlist. I felt that I would be fighting for 
you. And if I do not come back to-morrow I will be 
glad to feel that I will be helping to save you from 
harm. You will not miss me, but the Aunties will, and I 
am going to ask a great favour of you. Will you always 
go to see them, and comfort them ? And tell them they 
must not grieve for me. It is so much better to come 
out here and die for a good cause than to live in peace 
and safety at home. I am so glad, and they must be 
glad too, for my sake. I will have your little ring ” 

Christina could read no more just then. Her bright 
head went down on the sunny window sill, she slipped to 
the floor in a very passion of grief. She was realising 
with overwhelming remorse that a most beautiful thing 
had happened to her and her eyes had been too blind to 
see until the pageant had faded. Her True Knight — and 
what lady of high degree had a knight more noble? — 
her True Knight had ridden out to mortal combat, and 
she had not even waved him farewell from her win- 
dow! 

She left the work with Mitty the next day and went 
up over the hills to see the Grant Girls. She did not 
take her letter, it was too sacred for even their loving 
eyes, but she wanted to talk to them about Gavin and, if 
she were alone with Auntie Elspie, she would whisper 
to her that her heart had gone out into the storm and 
darkness after Gavin that night he went to the war, and 
that it still followed him somewhere in the shining re- 
gions where he moved. 

She went slowly up over the dun fields, lying all quiet 
and restful, waiting for the stirring of the Spring. Away 
down in. the beaver meadow a soft green flush told that 
the pussy willows were already out, a bold robin was 


250 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


singing the opening song of the Spring concert, and the 
crows cawed derisively over the memories of a van- 
quished Winter. 

But Christina’s sad heart could not respond to these 
little, gay greetings of Spring. She lingered in the bare 
slash, remembering the day of the berry-picking when 
Gavin had been in such deep trouble. She stood in the 
place where he had stood when he pulled the bind-weed, 
and when they had listened to the call of the opening 
drum beat of the war. And she went over in memory 
every foot of the walk in the harvest moonlight from 
Craig-Ellachie that night when she had been so happy 
with him, but had walked beside him with blinded eyes. 

The garden at Craig-Ellachie had already wakened to 
life, the crocuses were out, rows and rows of them, and 
the garden hyacinths were holding up their little green 
spears. But there was no happy gardener working in 
the brown beds. Christina went slowly up the walk 
where the dry leafless branches of the climbing roses 
hung over her head. Gavin’s dogs came tumbling down 
the steps to meet her in joyous welcome. 

She looked up in wonder as the kitchen door was flung 
suddenly open. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn flashed into the door- 
way and shouted something incoherent, and as suddenly 
disappeared, and Hughie Reid’s wife came to the win- 
dow and waved frantically. Christina ran forward, filled 
with foreboding. She darted up the steps and stopped 
amazed in the doorway. The kitchen was full of people, 
it seemed, all moving about and talking wildly. Mr. 
Sinclair was there and Dr. McGarry and a half dozen 
women, and the Aunties were running about laughing and 
crying, and it seemed as if every one had suddenly gone 
quite mad. 

And then it seemed to Christina that 'the room was 
going round and she found a chair and sat down quickly, 


THE GARDEN BLOOMS AGAIN 251 

for Mrs. Johnnie Dunn’s voice from far away was calling 
out the most amazing and unbelievable thing — shouting 
that Gavin was not dead ! He had been found ! He had 
been buried in a shell-hole, half-dead, and when the Blue 
Bonnets swept back over the enemy’s trenches he had 
been rescued. He had been badly wounded and had lain 
unconscious for a long time. But he was alive and was 
in a hospital in France ! 

Christina flew over the brown hills on the way to her 
mother with the news, saying over and over to her be- 
numbed senses that Gavin was not dead, that he was 
alive. It seemed as if her heart had been so stupefied 
with grief that it could not yet accept joy. She ran in a 
kind of dream saying that she would soon wake up and 
find that this was not true. 

But the glorious news was confirmed. There was a 
week of alternate wild hope and fear, and then, as won- 
derful as a message from the dead, came a cable from 
Gavin himself. He was in a hospital in France and was 
progressing rapidly. The next news told that he was in 
England, and then came a blessed letter from his nurse, 
saying that he was recovering slowly but surely and was 
promising himself that it would not be long until he 
would write a letter home. 

Such a clamour of joy and relief as the news of Gavin 
brought to Orchard Glen no one would have thought 
possible. Every one had sorrowed deeply with the Grant 
Girls and now the whole countryside came out to Craig- 
Ellachie to rejoice with them and to hear again and again 
the story of Gavin’s rescue. And the Grant Girls put in 
such a garden as the county had never seen, and grew 
young and bright again with joy and hope. 

As for Christina she moved about in a golden dream. 
Life was not real at all these days, but the dream of it 
was beautiful and the colour came back to her cheeks and 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


252 

the light to her eyes, and she went about the house with 
her old swift motions. 

She could not believe in the reality of her joy at all 
until she received her first letter from Gavin. As soon 
as the message came that he was in England she wrote 
him. It was her answer to the letter that he had never 
intended her to see during his life. It must have been a 
satisfactory answer, for not all the skill of surgeon 
and sister combined had produced a fraction of the heal- 
ing and strengthening quality that its closely written pages 
brought to the wounded soldier in England. And his 
answer made Christina’s eyes brighter and her step lighter 
than they had been since the day Jimmy and Neil went 
over the top. 

It was not until Gavin was so well that he was walking 
about that he wrote confessing the full extent of his in- 
juries. He had lost an arm, only his left arm, he wrote, 
which he really didn’t miss much. He made jokes about it 
and warned Auntie Janet that she need not be laying plans 
to do as she pleased, for he could manage the whole 
family and make them mind, even with one arm. And 
as he was still a little lame and would be likely to carry 
a heavy stick for some time he would be quite able to 
keep her in her place. 

But he did not write so lightly on the matter to Chris- 
tina. He had only one arm, and was a poor hobbling 
creature, he confessed, and how could he ask her to share 
life with him? He was only half a man, and a poor 
weak half at that. 

But Christina wrote him such a letter as forever put 
such notions out of Gavin’s head. It was a letter that 
made him feel not like half a man but as though he had 
the strength of ten. For what was the loss of an arm 
when one had such a warm heart beating for him, and 
awaiting his coming? 


THE GARDEN BLOOMS AGAIN 253 

Christina had not seen Wallace Sutherland since the 
day he had disappeared from her view in the black mist 
that had rolled up over her with the news that Gavin was 
killed. Her mind had been too much racked to think of 
him since, but now that it was at rest she remembered him 
with a feeling of shame. So she sat down and wrote him 
a letter, telling him humbly and frankly all the truth, how 
Gavin had held her heart long before she realised it. 
She begged him to forgive her if she had done him any 
injury and ended up by the tactful hint that as their as- 
sociation had been a pleasant friendship, in which the 
kindnesses had been so many and so generous on his 
side, she hoped he would think of her with pleasure, and 
that they would always continue to be friends. 

But Wallace was thinking of Christina with feelings 
entirely the reverse of pleasant. And his mother was 
thinking very bitter thoughts about her indeed. For just 
when Mrs. Sutherland had become reconciled to her son’s 
changed prospects, and when Uncle William was doing 
handsomely by the boy, when there was every prospect 
that Wallace would soon be married and be safe from the 
recruiting officers, with a farm and a wife and a widowed 
mother between him and military service, when every- 
thing had turned out better than she had dared to hope, 
suddenly the whole fabric of her plans came crashing 
about her ears. And all owing to the outrageous conduct 
of a girl who had thrown her son aside for a farm boy, 
merely for the glamour of a medal won on the battlefield ! 

It was really very hard on poor Mrs. Sutherland, and 
Christina was overcome with shame when she thought of 
her. For Wallace sold the Ford place to Mrs. Johnnie 
Dunn for a shamefully low figure and went off to the 
States where quite likely some wicked sleuth of a re- 
cruiting officer would find him and send him to the war 
after all. 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


254 

Christina was very humble and very much ashamed 
of herself, but it was hard to worry over Wallace when 
such wonderful things were happening in one’s own life. 
For before the apple blossoms came to decorate the 
orchard for her birthday, Sandy was home to help cele- 
brate. Even the news that he was wounded came as a 
relief from the strain of waiting. At least he was off the 
battlefield. And then it proved that the wound was not 
serious ; but he was lame and unfit for more active service 
and was coming home to finish his course at college if 
that were at all possible. 

And Uncle Neil took out his fiddle when the letter 
heralding Sandy’s return was received, and played softly 
some of his old favourite airs; tunes Christina had not 
heard since the boys went away to the war. And they 
brought the tender tears to her eyes, remembering the 
happy old days when they were all at home and Grandpa 
sang the Hindmost Hymn at eventide. Sandy’s presence 
brought new life to the Lindsay home. John and Uncle 
Neil sat up half the nights listening to his tales of the 
world of glory and horror in which he had been living. 
And Christina and her mother could scarcely let him out 
of their sight. He was all that had been spared them 
from the War Monster’s greed. 

In spite of all the dread sights he had witnessed he 
was the same gay old Sandy, and the home took on some 
of its old-time life and gaiety. He and Christina soon fell 
back into their habit of comradeship. They had many 
confidences to exchange, and Christina had to tell all the 
story of Gavin and what his going had meant to her. 
Sandy was full of joy at the telling. Gavin had always 
been a True Knight in his eyes and then he had all 
the returned soldier’s disdain of the slacker. Christina 
could not but shudder at what her life might have 
been had ambition ruled instead of her heart and 


THE GARDEN BLOOMS AGAIN 


255 

Wallace and Sandy were meeting here in the old home. 

They had many long talks on the pump platform under 
the blossoming orchard boughs, and they smiled often 
over their great plans that had all turned out so different- 
ly from what they had expected. 

“Are you still bound to get out of Orchard Glen?” 
asked Sandy slyly, and Christina had to confess that she 
was not. She could not quite explain to Sandy that all 
her restless ambition had been but the desire for some- 
thing great and heroic such as her simple life did not seem 
to contain. But the great and heroic had come right to 
her door, unseen, it is true, but now recognised, and her 
soul was perfectly content in its radiance. Life could 
never be narrow and common-place any more. She had 
attained all her ambition through following the road her 
heart indicated, — the shining pathway of loving self-sac- 
rifice that leads to the stars. 


CHAPTER XVI 


The Hills Above Orchard Glen 

A S soon as the word reached Craig-Ellachie that Gavin 
was to be sent home to Canada, Orchard Glen be- 
gan to bustle about for a grand celebration when he ar- 
rived. 

Tremendous K. got the biggest choir together that the 
village had ever seen; a harmonious jumble of Presby- 
terians, Methodists and Baptists. And the children of 
the three Sunday Schools united in a grand chorus, and 
Minnie Brown and Martha Henderson worked like slaves 
teaching them songs and patriotic exercises, all denomina- 
tions so mixed up nobody could tell which was which. 

Mr. Sinclair was chairman of the committee to plan the 
celebration with Mr. Wylie and the Baptist minister as 
his assistants. And nobody raised the slightest objection 
when, at the very first meeting, Marmaduke proposed that 
they invite Piper Lauchie McDonald to come down from 
Glenoro and play Gavin home from the station. 

Mr. Wylie nodded, and said “A good idea,” and old 
Tory Brown himself spoke up and said, “Yes, yes, let’s 
have the buddy. I don’t like his noise, myself, but Gavin 
will be pleased. He aye liked the pipes.” 

And Piper Lauchie was vastly pleased when he re- 
ceived the invitation and graciously declared that he 
would set his vow aside, not for the sake of Orchard Glen, 
but out of his reverence for the Victoria Cross, and per- 
mit the misguided folk to listen to his music once more. 
256 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 257 

Every one was pleased furthermore because the public 
reception was to be held in the Temperance Hall instead 
of the Presbyterian Church, for it was felt that for this 
occasion Gavin belonged to the whole village, no Church 
should claim them. And this arrangement suited the good 
folk who were alarmed at the possibility of hearing the 
piper in church, for as old Willie Henderson said, “Even 
though the lad did a great deed, that was no reason why 
the people of the village should pollute the House o' God.” 

So the Hero was to be received in the Temperance Hall 
where Gavin had sung his songs of heroic deeds, none 
to great as that he had done himself. Then after the 
reception, with speeches and singing, all were to gather 
in the basement of the Methodist Church for a great 
supper. The Red Cross work was to be cleared away 
for the occasion, and tables were to be set that would 
hold all the township of Oro. And if the weather was 
fine the supper was to be taken out to the church lawn 
and everybody was to have a real good old-fashioned 
picnic. 

Young Mrs. Martin, who had once taught school, and 
knew how things should be done, suggested that they ar- 
range the supper in a more up to date style. It could be 
held in the Hall also, and everybody could sit down to 
the tables first and have the speeches after, as was the 
proper way. But The Woman, who was running the 
affair, would not listen to her. 

“When you want to eat, why eat and be done with it, 
says I,” she commanded. “But this mixing up of a con- 
cert and speeches with the food and dirty dishes on a 
table, I just can't abide. And the idea is nothing but 
some foolishness of them town trollops who don’t know 
how to do things right anyways.” 

So, when everything was arranged so perfectly, and 
the two choirs could sing “O Canada” and “Keep the 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


258 

Home Fires Burning” without a flaw, and sufficient sand- 
wiches and cakes and pies had been promised to feed all 
the Blue Bonnets had they been coming home, it was 
something of a shock to everybody’s nerves when the 
astounding intelligence was received that the people of 
Algonquin were actually claiming Gavin as their own, 
and were arranging a reception for him at Algonquin on 
the very same day ! 

Fortunately Mrs. Johnnie Dunn discovered in time 
what Algonquin was up to. The Woman was now the 
President of the Red Cross Society in name, as well as in 
reality, as poor Mrs. Sutherland had withdrawn from all 
social life since her bitter disappointment over Wallace. 
And while she was attending a Red Cross meeting in 
Algonquin, Mrs. Johnnie made her amazing discovery. 
She called her forces together immediately upon her re- 
turn home and told them all the deadly plot of the towns- 
people in a red hot speech that was talked about for years 
afterwards. 

It appeared that the Algonquin people, with their un- 
failing habit of gobbling up everything that came near 
them, had calmly appropriated the Victoria Cross hero 
as their own, just because the company of the Blue Bon- 
nets to which he belonged had drilled for a few months in 
their town ! And they had published all over the country- 
side that he was an Algonquin boy. He was to be met at 
the station, — just as if he had nobody belonging to him, — 
by the Mayor, and the Council, and a member of Parlia- 
ment, and what not. And there was to be a little girl all 
dressed up fit to kill, who would hand him a bunch of 
flowers ! To Gavin Grant, who had all the Craig-Ellachie 
garden waiting for him ! And then he was to be taken up 
to the Town Hall and set down to a banquet, with long 
speeches by all the preachers in the town, right in the mid- 
dle of the eating; one of those messed-up affairs where 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 259 

you sat round amongst the dirty dishes and had speeches 
and singing all mixed up with your meat and potatoes. 

Yes, it was true, — every word of it! It was the 
Algonquin President herself who told her, — that forward 
woman who was always teaching them how to sew a band 
on a shirt. And it was all the talk at the Red Cross meet- 
ing in town about the wonderful reception that was to be 
given to their returned soldier. 

“Who’s the reception for?” says I, “for I hadn’t heard 
of any one in Algonquin that had done anything but dodge 
the recruiting officer?” 

“Why one of our boys won the V. C. at the front,” 
says she, “didn’t you hear about it ?” 

“The V. C. !” says I, gettin’ suspicious, “it’s the first 
time I ever heard that any soldier from this town got 
anything but C. B.” says I. 

“Oh, yes,” says she, as sweet as honey, “why, didn’t 
you see in the papers about Gavin Grant getting the 
V. C. ? He’s one of our Algonquin boys. He enlisted 
here in The Blue Bonnets !” 

And then another woman speaks up and says she, 
“ ‘Why Mrs. Dunn,’ says she, ‘it’s a wonder you don’t 
know Gavin Grant. I think he comes from somewhere 
near Orchard Glen,’ says she !” 

“‘Well’ says I, ‘it is a wonder; that’s a fact! I don’t 
seem to know as much about him as I thought I did. He’s 
lived almost on the next farm to me since he was the 
size of a grasshopper,’ says I, ‘but this is the first time I 
ever heard that he belonged to Algonquin !’ says I.” 

“Well, I tell you, that blew down their clothes-line in a 
hurry; especially when I told them that he was to be 
recepted at his own home on the very day they were 
planning their spree.” 

“They got into a terrible sweat, and one of the women 
ran and telephoned the Mayor’s office, and the Mayor 


26 o 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


came runnin’ over as if the town had caught fire. He was 
in a great sputter I tell you, when I let him know that 
he’d put his horse into the wrong stall. You’d think it 
had turned out that Gavin was a German spy.” 

“ ‘Why, Mrs. Dunn,’ says he, ‘we’ve got all our ar- 
rangements made,’ says he, ‘and Mr. Leigh, the member, 
is spoken for,’ says he, ‘and, you’ll just have to put yours 
on for the next afternoon,’ says he, ‘we really can’t change 
now !’ ” 

“ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘I wouldn’t have you stop Corny Leigh 
from makin’ a speech, for all the world,’ says I, ‘I 
know how hard it would be on him,’ says I, ‘but I 
don’t see how you’ll manage,’ says I, ‘seein’ that Gavin 
Grant, V. C., is going’ to get off at Silver Creek Crossing, 
on the other side of Orchard Glen !’ says I.” 

This was an inspiration on The Woman’s part, and her 
audience burst into clapping. Silver Creek was a little 
station away back in the woods, and Orchard Glen lay 
midway between it and Algonquin. It was merely a flag 
station set away in the swamp, and not a fitting place 
to meet a hero home from the war, but every one agreed 
that in this emergency it proved a real refuge from the 
greed of Algonquin. It was a grand notion of The Wom- 
an’s, and all Orchard Glen fairly held its sides laughing 
at the enemy’s discomfiture. 

So there was nothing for the vanquished but a retreat. 
They accomplished it hastily, and dug themselves in, there 
to await a later opportunity when Gavin would be re- 
ceived in proper style after Orchard Glen had got over 
blowing its trumpets. 

But Orchard Glen had to learn that they could not keep 
Gavin quite to themselves. A reporter from one of the 
Algonquin weekly papers came out to the village ; and 
later a couple of representatives of Toronto papers. They 
all had dinner at Craig-Ellachie and they took pictures 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 261 


of the old house, and of the three Aunties in the garden, 
and another of Auntie Elspie spinning in the door way. 
And they carried off a photograph of Gavin in his High- 
land bonnet and kilt, and it was all published in a great 
page of the Saturday issue, the pictures of the beautiful 
old home, and the thrilling tale of Gavin’s glorious deed, 
with his picture in the centre of it all, and underneath his 
battle-cry, “Stand Fast, Craig-Ellachie !” 

And the Aunties were so proud and happy, that they 
could neither eat nor sleep, but just wandered about the 
house and garden in a happy daze. 

And through all the interviews, not one of the clever, 
keen-scented reporters, discovered that the hero had been 
just a poor waif from an Orphan Asylum that Auntie 
Elspie had plucked as a brand from the furnace of Skin- 
flint Jenkins’s cruelty. 

The Grant Girls were eager to guard the secret, but 
that required some finesse of which they were entirely in- 
capable. But Mrs. Johnnie Dunn was equal to any oc- 
casion, and she managed to be at Craig-Ellachie during 
the interviews. She kept close to the reporters, answer- 
ing all their questions, and forestalling any that might be 
embarrassing. Without making any direct statements 
that might hurt the tender consciences of the Aunties, she 
led the newspaper men gently along a train of thought 
that ended in the firm impression that Gavin was the only 
child of their brother, with all his virtues and many more 
of his own. It was a subtle suggestion of The Woman’s 
that made the youngest reporter notice a strong resem- 
blance between Gavin’s photograph and Aunt Janet. And 
indeed The Woman made such a fine story for the 
visitors, encouraging them along any and every bypath 
that their imagination might suggest, that not even Auntie 
Elspie could recognise her quiet, unassuming, reticent boy 


262 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


in the prancing warrior that Mrs. Johnnie Dunn per- 
mitted the representatives of the press to create. 

The discovery of the perfidy of Algonquin in trying 
to steal Gavin made some re-arrangement for his recep- 
tion necessary. As he was to be met at the quiet little 
nook in the swamp, instead of the noisy station at Algon- 
quin, young Mrs. Martin made her second suggestion. 
It was that they have their programme and addresses of 
welcome right there in the open, beside the Silver Creek, 
and the more informal part, the supper, and some of the 
performances by the children, on their return. 

This new arrangement met with every one’s approval ; 
even The Woman felt it would be a good idea to welcome 
Gavin properly right at the station, as soon as he stepped 
off. For the papers had all announced that Orchard Glen 
was preparing a grand home-coming for their hero, and 
who knew but there might be half-a-dozen reporters on 
the train to take notes of how they were doing it? 

At last the word for which every one was waiting 
came. Gavin had reached Toronto ; the hospital authori- 
ties were releasing him for a time, and the day for his 
home-coming was set ! Sandy Lindsay was in Toronto at 
the time, and he wrote to Christina that he would be up 
with Gavin. For the hero of the Victoria Cross dreaded 
this public reception more than German gas, and insisted 
upon having some support when he was compelled to 
march into it. 

So Sandy took matters in his own hands and tele- 
graphed Mr. Sinclair that Gavin would arrive at Silver 
Creek on the two-thirty train, on a Friday afternoon, and 
Orchard Glen sat up half the night before getting ready. 

Christina had never taken such a long time dressing 
in her life as she did that afternoon. At first she was 
seized with a sudden panic of shyness, and told herself 
she would not go. She knew the girls gossiped about her 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 263 

sudden change of heart, and her relation to Gavin was no 
secret. For the Aunties had been too happy to keep from 
telling, and Mrs. Sutherland had not been guiltless of 
making Christina's faithlessness public. 

The girls were rather inclined to feel sorry for Chris- 
tina. It did not seem possible that any girl would choose 
Gavin Grant, even with a Victoria Cross, in preference to 
Wallace Sutherland with the Ford place, and the only true 
explanation of the affair was that Wallace had changed. 
On the other hand, Bell Brown declared that Christina 
Lindsay was not like other girls and no one could tell 
what she would do. 

So Christina well knew that they were talking about 
her, and at first she declared she would stay home with 
her mother and Uncle Neil. But the Aunties made it 
clear that they expected her to go, and she could not 
bear that they be disappointed on this the greatest day 
of their lives. And then Gavin would be disappointed 
too, and that would be still worse, and she had to confess 
to her honest heart that Christina would be more dis- 
appointed than any one, for she was impatient to see her 
hero, and quite as eager to go as the Aunties themselves. 

So she put away all her fears, and spent a most un- 
reasonable length of time getting herself ready. She 
wound her shining braids around her head and put on her 
best white dress and her white hat, and reverently fast- 
ened the purple band on her arm, for the dear ones who 
would never come home, but who were somewhere near 
in the free outer ring of being just beyond the painful 
confines of her life. And when she was all ready, with 
her golden hair and her eyes so blue, as Gavin had so 
often sung, she looked very young and fair, and far more 
beautiful than any Lindsay girl had ever yet looked. 

The weather was perfect, such a glorious day of blank 
blue skies, with the smooth shaven fields lying golden- 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


264 

brown in the sunshine. Here and there a field showed 
sheaves of wheat standing in khaki-coloured groups like 
soldiers on guard. Nobody cared that the Air Service of 
the clouds might bomb them with silver bullets before 
night, for how could any one stay home and haul in his 
crop when one of their own boys was coming home 
bearing the Victoria Cross? 

The crowd gathered at the corner, where the order of 
the procession was to be arranged. Piper Lauchie was 
there early this time and was marching up and down the 
store veranda, so that nobody could come in or out, and 
playing gloriously. Mrs. Johnnie Dunn brought her new 
car to carry the three Aunties, with a space reserved for 
Gavin. Mr. Holmes had recently bought a Ford and he 
came next with the piper, a piece of real Christian sacri- 
fice on the store-keeper’s part. He was followed by the 
ministers, all crowded amicably into one single buggy, 
where there was no room for denominational differences. 
Next came the choir, spreading over three big democrats, 
and following them, the Hendersons’ hay wagon with the 
children piled into it three deep. Ordinary individuals 
came next without any order of precedence, and as far 
down the line as possible, Christina sat beside John in 
their single buggy. 

The procession made a brave showing, with the long 
line of vehicles stretching from the corner away up the hill 
and down the other side, every one decorated with flags 
and streamers, and Piper Lauchie standing up in the 
Holmes’ car playing loud enough to be heard in Algon- 
quin. 

But not all the rest of the procession together could 
compare in display with Mrs. Johnnie Dunn’s car where 
the three Aunties sat arrayed as no even the Grant Girls 
had ever appeared in public. Auntie Elspie wore a sea- 
green brocaded satin, trimmed with silk fringe; Auntie 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 265 

Flora was in a dazzling silk of an ancient “changeable” 
variety, that was now purple and now gold, and a won- 
derful beaded cape of black velvet. And Auntie Janet 
was in her ruby velvet with a rose silk fringed parasol 
that turned to flame when the sun struck it. And beside 
they had the car filled with flowers and each Auntie car- 
ried a little posie of rosemary and pinks, Gavin’s favour- 
ites of all the garden. 

“We wanted him to smell the rosemary as soon as he 
got off the train,” explained Auntie Flora, “and then he 
would feel he was at home.” 

The procession were a bright and beautiful sight, in- 
deed, and the Grant Girls’ faces, so shining and young and 
eager, were the brightest thing in all the gay throng that 
started out to bring Gavin home. 

Mrs. Johnnie Dunn had them all put into their proper 
places at last and away they went skimming down the 
sunny River Road, under the towering elms that fringed 
the highway, with the golden harvest-fields, where the 
khaki-coloured sheaves stood up like soldiers on guard, 
smiling on either hand, and the winding reaches of the 
Silver Creek peeping out from the green, here and there, 
with a flash like an unsheathed sword. 

The Woman had arranged the programme to be given 
at the Crossing, so that there was no possibility of any- 
thing going wrong. The choirs were to line up, right in 
front of the place where the train would stop, with the 
Piper behind them, ready to play at the first sight of the 
train coming out of the swamp. Indeed the Piper was 
The Woman’s one anxiety. She was afraid he could not 
be induced to stop in time for the children to come in with 
their chorus, and she had cautioned Marmaduke to give 
his old shawl a good jerk and choke him off before it was 
too late. 

It had been arranged, very prettily, that the Piper was 


266 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


to play until the train came to a stop, then he was to stop 
too, and the children were to burst into “O Canada,” and 
were to sing it with all their might, standing up in the 
wagon and waving their flags. While this was going on 
Gavin would be getting off the train and was to be wel- 
comed by the ministers and Dr. McGarry and Mr. 
Holmes, the special committee appointed for the purpose. 
Then the committee was to lead him to the car where the 
Grant Girls were sitting, and while he was meeting 
them, Marmaduke was to give the signal, and all were 
to burst into three cheers, and the boys had promised they 
would be such cheers as had never before wakened up the 
echoes of the swamp. 

When Gavin was properly seated, both the choirs, and 
indeed everybody, were to join in singing his regimental 
song, “All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border. ,, 

And when that was finished Mr. Sinclair was to read 
the address, and Mr. Wylie and the Baptist minister were 
to say a few words, and if Auntie Elspie could make him, 
Gavin was then to step out upon the platform and give his 
reply. And Auntie Elspie had promised to do her best, 
but would give no assurance of success. 

When this was over, there was to be another patriotic 
song by the choirs, then the Piper could have a chance 
again, and every one was to climb back into their rigs, and 
they would all go back home and have such a supper as 
nobody would believe until they saw it! 

It was really to be a fine welcome home, and Orchard 
Glen could not help feeling some regret, that Algonquin's 
mean habit of hero-snatching should have prevented the 
whole town witnessing the splendid scene. 

When they all drew up with much noise and dust at 
Silver Creek Crossing, the crowd made a great stir in the 
lonely place, and the sound of their gay voices echoed far 
away into the swamp as they arranged themselves around 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 267 

the tiny platform, and along the green bank of the stream. 

Willie Meek, the one inhabitant of the lonely place, 
came out of his tiny habitation with a tattered cloth on a 
stick and stood ready to flag the train. And then when 
every one was ready and waiting, of course the Martin 
children were constrained to stir up trouble! As soon 
as the children’s choir was put into its proper place, these 
two “limbs,” as Mrs. Johnnie Dunn called them, slipped 
away from the confines of the hay wagon, and no one 
missed them till a terrible scream from the crossing bridge 
announced that one of them had fallen into the creek. 

Mrs. Martin echoed the scream and called out as she 
always did in time of disaster, “Oh, Alfred!” And Al- 
fred left his horses and ran to the rescue. Willie Meek 
dropped his flag and Piper Lauchie dropped his pipes, 
and joined the crowd that was pulling the eldest Martin 
out of the soft mud and water of the creek. And at the 
same moment the shriek of the train just on the other side 
of the bend came thrilling through the woods. Tremen- 
dous K. saw that there was nobody to flag the train and he 
rushed gallantly onto the track, waving his hands and 
shouting on the monster to stop. 

But they might have known that the train would stop 
if there had been no one there at all. For all the way 
from Toronto hadn’t two returned soldiers been torment- 
ing the conductor with warnings to stop at Silver Creek 
Crossing, if he valued his life. And at every station he 
would come into then and say hopefully, “Only six more 
stops, boys,” or “Just five more, and we’re there,” and 
finally it had been “Silver Creek comes next,” and, with 
fine sarcasm, “Did you say you wanted to get off there ?” 

And so, when the train swept round the bend out of 
the swamp, with a shriek and a roar, and came thunder- 
ing down upon the Crossing, there was no need for 
Tremendous K., who, nevertheless, stood his ground in 


268 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


the middle of the track, waving his arms to be quite sure 
there was no danger of its tearing through, and carrying 
Gavin on to Algonquin. 

The roaring monster stopped with a grumbling of 
brakes and an impatient hissing of steam, with Gavin’s 
car right in front of the waiting crowd. All eyes were 
turned upon the two khaki-clad figures. The young offi- 
cer was in the background, the kilted figure was on the 
step. Gavin was leaning far out, his eager eyes sweeping 
the crowd. He looked very tall and very, very thin, with 
a red spot burning on either sunken cheek, but his eyes 
were bright and he stood up very straight and looked a 
gallant figure for all he held a heavy stick in his one hand, 
and his poor empty sleeve was tucked into his pocket. 

And at the sight of him Auntie Elspie gave a cry, and 
before any of the committee could get near him, Gavin 
had fairly fallen off the car platform, and at the same 
moment the three Aunties had tumbled from the car 
where they were supposed to sit decorously, and the four 
were in each other’s arms, and the Grant Girls were cry- 
ing over their battered hero, as they had not cried even 
when they heard he was lying dead on the battlefield of 
France. And Gavin, half -laughing, half-crying, himself, 
was trying to gather the three of them into his one poor 
arm which was needed so badly for his supporting stick ! 

And all Orchard Glen stood and looked on in dead 
silence, with a lump in every throat and a mist in every 
eye, and everybody forgot entirely that there was such a 
thing as a programme to be followed. 

Finally, Mr. Sinclair and Dr. McGarry led the Aunties 
back to the car and as Gavin climbed in he cried out, 
“Oh, Auntie Flora, I’m really home. I smell the garden.” 
And the Aunties took to crying harder than ever. 

Then all the mothers, who were weeping in sympathy, 
came and hugged and kissed him, and shed tears over 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 269 

him, and all the rest left their appointed places and 
crowded round the hero to get in a word of welcome, and 
speakers and choir and everybody got all mixed up in 
hopeless confusion. 

Nobody noticed that the train had pulled out again, and 
that every one on board (and who knew but half of them 
might be newspaper reporters?) had seen the Orchard 
Glen had done nothing but stand and stare in perfect 
silence when one of their boys came home bearing the 
Victoria Cross, and what would the people of Algonquin 
say when they heard ? 

But nobody thought of all this just yet, not even The 
Woman, for she too was crying over Gavin’s empty sleeve, 
and thinking of the one who would never come back. 
Every one was coming up to shake his hand now and 
Gavin’s eyes were wandering searchingly over the crowd, 
even when Marmaduke and Tremendous K. and the 
minister were making him welcome. 

And suddenly the restless, hungry look was replaced 
by a flash of rapture, for Christina, all flushed and trem- 
bling, and looking more beautiful than any one would 
have dreamed she could look, came forward, hanging 
tightly to Sandy’s arm. She forgot all about the crowd 
for just a moment, when she took his one hand in both 
hers, and whispered, “Oh, Gavin !” And he looked at her 
with his eyes shining and said with equal incoherence, 
“Oh, Christine!” 

They stood for a moment looking into each other’s eyes, 
the world blotted out, and remembered the night they 
parted. And they did not say what they had expected 
to say at all. For Gavin whispered, looking at her dress, 
“You are wearing my pin.” And she looked down for 
her ring, and remembered that the hand that had worn 
it was gone ! And she could only look at him with the 
tears welling up in her eyes, and then she was pushed on 


270 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


to make room for Tilly who was crying her pretty eyes 
out for no reason at all. It was not much of an interview, 
but it was a very great deal to the lovers, and the red spot 
that had faded from Gavin’s cheeks at the first sight of 
Christina, flamed up again, and he rallied Tilly gaily and 
asked her was she sorry that he had come home ? 

And when the mothers had all kissed him and bewailed 
him and rejoiced over him again, and they had all climbed 
into their cars and buggies, and Piper Lauchie had tuned 
up for a homeward march, The Woman suddenly re- 
membered that there had been no singing and no addresses 
and no programme and nothing but dead silence and tears 
to welcome the hero of the Victoria Cross on his return 
from the war! 

It was perfectly outrageous, and not to be tolerated for 
a moment. She sprang from her car, leaving Gavin 
and his Aunts to themselves, and shouted to Tremendous 
K. and Mr. Sinclair and Mr. Holmes to come right back 
and do it all over again ! 

But nobody paid the slightest attention. The pro- 
cession was already moving down the road without the 
slightest regard to order. The strain had been removed, 
and everybody seemed seized with a joyous madness. 
Even Mr. Sinclair waved his hat and laughed at her as 
his buggy swung past, leaving the hero in the rear. 

Then Marmaduke forsook his companions and without 
asking permission scrambled into her car with Gavin, and 
sat on the silk fringe of Auntie Elspie’s dress, and shouted 
and waved encouragement to every one that passed while 
The Woman screamed expostulations. 

“Never mind,” he roared, to each one, “we didn’t for- 
get to flag the train !” and from each buggy and car the 
long delayed cheers burst forth. 

In spite of all her efforts the procession dashed away. 
Though it wasn’t a real procession at all, but a joyous 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 271 

scramble, with every one getting in every one else’s way. 
The children would not go back into their hay-wagon, 
but scrambled all over into the best cars, and the girls in 
the choir got mixed up with the boys in single buggies, 
and a crowd of foolish young fellows got into Mr. 
Holmes’ car with the Piper, and actually persuaded that 
staid and proper pillar of the Baptist Church to race with 
Dr. McGarry. And the Piper was so shaken up he 
couldn’t play at all. And young Mr. Martin’s horse took 
fright at the noise and confusion, and nearly ran away, 
and just escaped throwing all the children into the ditch. 
And so they all scampered gaily, helter-skelter, back to the 
village, the hero far in the rear, hidden in clouds of dust, 
with his friends gambolling ahead. And indeed Gavin’s 
homecoming was no more like a triumphal procession 
than any of the foot-ball games in which he used to take 
part in the river pasture. 

But whatever faults The Woman or Tremendous K. 
might have found with his reception, it was perfect in 
Gavin’s eyes and the eyes of the three Aunties. For all 
its mistakes were but the result of the overwhelming sym- 
pathy and joy of his friends, and relief that the Aunties 
had not, after all, lost the light of their eyes. And indeed 
if no one had met him but had left him to find his way to 
Craig-Ellachie alone, and afterwards over the hills to 
Christina, Gavin would have been perfectly happy. For 
he was still much the same shy boy who had gone away, 
with no thought of glory or public notice, but only a 
simple desire to do his duty. He was not a boy any more, 
for he had been through scenes that make men old, and 
the remembrance of them lingered in his deep eyes, and 
showed in a new staidness of manner. But he was the 
same simple-hearted Gavin, reticent and unassuming and 
in his heart he almost could wish, except for the joy it 
gave his Aunties, that he had never heard of the Victoria 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


272 

Cross. He had only done his duty, he repeated over and 
over, and all the men at the Front were doing that. 

And so he lay back among the cushions, surrounded by 
flowers, his one hand in Auntie Elspie’s, and looked with 
shining eyes, not at the beautiful familiar bits of land- 
scape which were passing, and to which the Aunties 
were calling his attention, but at the gleam of a golden- 
brown head that was occasionally visible from John Lind- 
say’s buggy. Marmaduke pointed out this and that his- 
torical landmark ; the hill where they used to go coasting 
in winter; the old burnt stump up which Gavin had 
climbed to get the hawk’s nest one day at recess; the 
hole below the mill where the teacher forbade them to 
swim and into which they all plunged at noon quite regu- 
larly, and Gavin smiled and nodded, and saw nothing but 
the gleam of gold ahead. 

Whatever had been wrong with the reception and the 
procession, no fault could be found with the supper. It 
had been set outdoors on the church lawn, and the tables 
were so ladened with chicken and ham and jellies and 
salads and cake and pie, that instinctively the men took 
off their coats before sitting down to the attack. And 
after everything was eaten nobody seemed able either to 
hear or make a speech. And there was no music and no 
programme, for the juvenile choir, after gorging itself 
in a truly dangerous fashion, went out into the dust of 
the village street, and played tag and hide-and-seek, and 
not even the Pied Piper, himself, could have collected 
them again. And the other choir was either waiting on 
the tables, or eating so much that they couldn’t sing either. 

The address was read, but there was so much noise 
and joyous running to and fro that not even Gavin heard 
it. And his speech was as short as a speech could pos- 
sibly be, just a word of thanks for himself and his Aunts 
and his oft reiterated statement, he had only done his 


THE HILLS ABOVE ORCHARD GLEN 273 

duty, and all the fellows at the Front, and many at home 
were doing that. 

But everybody had a grand time, nevertheless, such a 
time of laughing and talking and eating together as had 
not been experienced in Orchard Glen since the fell 
day the Piper came to rend the village asunder, — the 
Piper, who was at this very moment cementing it again 
with “Tullochgorum,” which he was blowing uproariously 
as he marched up and down in front of the Methodist 
Church ! 

When Christina reached home she found there was lit- 
tle work to be done. Uncle Neil and Mitty had come 
home early and had already finished the milking. Sandy 
was tired and had stretched himself in the hammock, to 
have a talk with his mother. Contrary to her custom 
Christina did not lay aside her white dress for a plainer 
garb. She spent a long time rearranging the shining 
crown of her braids, and when the shadows of the poplars 
began to stretch across the garden, she slipped away 
through the barn-yard and up the back lane, up to the sun- 
lit hill top, where Gavin had promised to meet her. 

The peace of evening was falling with the dew. From 
far down in the village came the sound of children’s 
voices, beyond the orchards a binder was singing its way 
through the golden fields. Up on the hill top there was a 
sense of remoteness from the world, all sound and 
movement seemed far away. Only the vesper sparrows 
were here, filling the amber twilight with their soft mur- 
murs, and away in the dim green aisles of the Slash a 
phoebe was calling sweetly. Christina came up into the 
light of the setting sun, and when Gavin’s eyes first spied 
her, its rays were lighting up her white gown and touch- 
ing her uncovered head to pure gold. He took off his 
Scotch bonnet at the sight of her. 

There was an old heavy gate opening from his fields, 


IN ORCHARD GLEN 


274 

and Christina, who was lingering that Gavin might come 
to her, saw that he was trying vainly to open it with his 
one hand, his stick held under what remained of his 
poor left arm. She forgot all her shyness and her pride 
at the sight, forgot everything but that Gavin needed her, 
and ran swiftly to him, down the green woodland path- 
way. 

She took the heavy gate in her strong, brown hands and 
pushed it back. 

“Oh, Gavin, 1 ” she cried radiantly, “I will have to be 
your other hand, won’t I?” 

Even Gavin’s unready tongue could not miss this 
great opportunity, “Yes, you will be everything, — my 
whole life, Christine,” he murmured. 

The heavy gate between them was open at last. It had 
been a long, hard climb, up their separate hills of suffer- 
ing and self-sacrifice, but they had come up steadily and 
bravely. And now they met, and stood hand in hand, on 
the rosy hill-top. 


THE END 


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